The time has finally come. Remnants and reminders of my battle with cancer are all over the house. The time has come to purge these items from the house. There is so much stuff laying around! Pills, syringes, creams, wipes, plumbing. The list goes on and on.
Some of the stuff hasn’t been used for a year, others as recently as February. Only the things that are going away are on the table. There are still medications and supplies I currently use that aren’t shown here. I’m also missing a lot of medicine that I actually finished. These are the remnants of pills that were ineffective or I eventually no longer needed.
It is a good reminder to me of how good I have it now. Free from pain and down to two medications daily and one weekly, it is a vast improvement over the cocktail of pills I was taking before.
The epsom salts were used to relieve the incredible pain pre and post surgery when the pain medication wasn’t effective. The three types of nausea medication I had was to keep things in check during chemo. The chux were placed under my bed sheet to protect the mattress from the drain that was sticking out of my body after the surgery. The creams for before surgery to try and ease the pain and battle the side effects of radiation. The bag of needles and tubes, the syringes of saline, the heparin and alcohol wipes were on hand so a home healthcare nurse could access my port for the massive antibiotics I took after contracting an e coli infection.
Now I don’t need any of it! The pain is gone. The nausea is gone. The drain is gone. The port is gone. All that’s left are the scars, my new post surgery normal and the antibiotic resistant bacteria my body now contains.
All in all I came out in very good shape and I’m not complaining. Getting rid of these reminders is another step on my journey. They are remnants of the war I fought. Hopefully I won’t have to do battle again and getting rid of these things is an optimistic gesture. A statement that cancer no longer lives here and will never be welcome again!
Mike I have been reading your blogs since you started. I wanted to tell you what an incredible, courageous man you are. You may not now but you have made a impact in mine and Bill’s lives. I read your blogs to Bill and it really gives him hope. I believe it helps him to know that what he is going thru and thinking of that he is not alone, and there is hope. You two have different types of cancer but you share the same unknown feeling all the what if’s, feeling of loss etc. I’m so happy that things are getting better for you! I just wanted to share that with you and without you even knowing how much you have helped my family and you are truly an amazing human being! We both continue to be inspired by you. So for that we thank you! Wish you and your wife the best ‘
Thank you again,
Bill and Debbie Hubbard
Thank you so much for this. Knowing that writing this blog has had a positive impact on you and Bill is the best gift you could ever give me.