Survival is a Lifetime Commitment

I caught a cold in May.  I was on vacation, spending a lot of time outside in damp, chilly weather and I caught a cold.  This cold came with a cough.  I panicked.  Did this feel like the cough I had last year?  The cough I had that I thought was a cold and turned out to be cancer!?  I couldn't remember.  I tried to remember what that cough felt like in comparison to other regular cold coughs I'd had in the past and I couldn't do it.  I mean, who remembers coughs?

Not only that, it had been a year and a half since I'd had a regular cold, and who remembers things that happen 18 months ago?

So, I panicked and started stressing.  Stress?  Oh no.  Stress is bad.  Cancer loves stress, almost as much as sugar.  And cancer really, really loves sugar.  Don't stress about your cancer coming back.  Don't stress about stressing about your cancer coming back.  See what I'm trying to say here?  This survival/remission thing is hard.  Being a survivor isn't something that happens in a second and then you're over it.  It's a status you have to wake up and fight for, pray for, eat right for, stay calm for, the rest of your life.

Worth it?  Oh totally.  Of course.  But that doesn't mean it isn't hard.

I went to my oncologist as soon as I got home.  He told me I had a cold and the cough would go away in a few days.  Yeah, I'd heard that before.  About this time last year, right before my cancer diagnosis!

Anyway, I nodded and smiled and went to see my Second Opinion doctor in the big city.  He told me I had a cold.  I told him, "Yeah, but what if-" and he stopped me right there.  He held up a hand, gave me one of those admonishing, I-know-more-about-this-than-you-do side-eyes and issued the following wise, sage advice, totally befitting his station as one of the leading lymphoma specialists in the country.  Ready?  Ready for a flash of insight and free advice from this learned and brilliant physician?  Here's what he said:

"Don't be that person."

He then proceeded to laugh at me, and escorted me out of his office telling me he had "actual sick people" to visit.

You know what though?  He was right.  He was totally freaking right.  Worrying doesn't solve anything.  Though it's possible it can make things worse, it has no power to make anything better.  It's useless.

Does this mean I'm cured of worry now?  Of course not.  I'm working on it.  Day by day.  Just like I'm working on surviving, day by day.

PS: The cough?  Yeah, it went away in a couple days.