The holiday season can be difficult for cancer patients and their loved ones. It’s tough to be merry while dealing with treatment side effects or wondering whether one will be alive this time next year.
By the end of November this year, I’d hit a low point. My energy had waned, oppressed by the shorter days and gray skies of Seattle and a general sense of ill health. My cough had increased, stirring fears of recurrence. My writing muse had burned out after weeks of intensive Lung Cancer Awareness Month activities.
Then, within one week, two lung cancer buddies died, and a third friend died of metastatic breast cancer days after being diagnosed. I kept vigil with her family as her lungs failed from obstructive pneumonia–a scenario that was far too familiar. The shadow of my own Ghost of Christmas Future loomed, and holiday lights did nothing to brighten it.
In a rare moment of prescience last summer, my family had planned the perfect remedy for me … read more on my Cure Today blog
Image credit:
JFD20141220-CancunClubRegina by Janet Freeman-Daily is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Glad that vacation was so serendipitous for your well being! Have a great holiday season 🙂
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Janet, you express so well many of my complex feelings on this, my first Christmas with metastatic lung cancer. My husband and I are with our beloved daughter in Montreal, and it is helping me from wallowing in a new layer of melancholy added to a season that, for me, always has a touch of bitter mixed with the sweet. Thank you for these words.
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