NOT Stuck On Empty (LENGTHY BLOG WARNING!)

While writing today's blog, I'm listening to Van Halen's "5150" album. Good stuff from 1986.
"World turns black and white
Pictures in an empty room
Your love starts fallin down
Better change your tune
Reach for the golden ring
Reach for the sky
Baby just spread your wings
Chorus:
Well get higher and higher straight up well climb
Well get higher and higher leave it all behind
Run, run, run, away
Like a train runnin off the track
The truth gets left behind
And falls between the cracks
Standing on broken dreams
But never losing sight
Spread your wings
Chorus
So baby dry your eyes, save all the tears youve cried
Ohh thats what dreams are made of
Oh baby we belong in a world that must be strong
Ohh thats what dreams are made of" - "Dreams" by Van Halen

Had an e-mail exchange with Bo's mother yesterday. I guess between her and Hunter's mom, we have our own support group going on (you are going to meet so many cool people at The Big Backyard No Aliens Invited Party). I'm staying in touch with them for the sole purpose of having an excuse to go eat some Eastern Carolina barbecue when I go visit them. KIDDING! - see yesterday's ACS web link.

What I've learned is, it's OK to not know what to say to a cancer patient. A smile, a card, even "How are you doing," is fine (even though I said that was taboo when I first started my blog). I've learned stuff since then. In tribute to The Ten Commandments, here are some "shalt nots." Thou shalt not promiseth the cancer patient that they will come out of it cancer free. Thou shalt not offereth alternative medical advice. Thou shalt not tiptoe around us whilst afraid that thou may sayest or doest the wrong thing.

Don't take those the wrong way; i.e. don't feel like I am trying to bring you down. I'm trying to help you from coming to the world of "I Wish I Had or Hadn't Said That", which is where I reside most of the time. The more we get stuff out in the open, the less stress we have about it in the future. My dream is once the stress of cancer is put aside, then more time will be spent on a cure.

Another friend in North Carolina is a breast cancer survivor and she told me that when she was undergoing treatment, she would get a little uncomfortable when people wanted to talk about her cancer. She often wished they would have asked about her garden and other stuff. The answer to all this is simple. None of us know what we're doing in all this. It's OK that we don't. There are answers I don't have. There are answers you don't have. I blame the chemo medicines. Funny story: The Nurse Practitioner asked me yesterday if I had any hallucinations from the new drugs. I told her I hadn't, but was kind of hoping I would. You can guess her reaction (it involved the shaking of her head).

My friend Sandy knows exactly how and when to react a specific way with me (She thinks it's the wisdom of her Southern upbringing. I think it's the fact she's been exposed to the right amount of Yankee courtesy. C'mon, she's never eaten a ramp...). She knows that gallows humor is hysterical to me at the right time. She knows when I need to process stuff. She doesn't pour on saccharine for the sake of it. Of course, she'll tell me when I need to look at an alternate view. I fear that she knows when I am sleeping and knows when I'm awake. I chose two people up front to have that role. They welcomed the opportunity to be in that position.

The purpose of my blog is to keep you updated on me. Another purpose is to help you walk through it with me and for you to be able to help others now and in the future. I don't mind talking about my cancer. Without it, I don't know how interesting of a person I would be. As I told a friend the other week, "I don't want to be a preacher. I want to be a minister."