A burden is gone, and I don’t know where it went, or exactly when it left. I just realized one day that it had disappeared.
When you’re diagnosed with cancer, it puts a sharper perspective on your mortality. Everyone knows they will one day die, but having cancer brings that “one day” into sharper focus. When your next diagnosis is an incurable cancer, that “one day” almost seems to be lurking near by.
The thought of death was constantly on my mind, it was always there. Always. It became exhausting. No matter where I went or what I did, the thought of impending death was involuntarily foremost in my thoughts.
It was not the fear of death, I know the one true God; it was the reality of my impending death. That notion monopolized my mind for months, and then one day I realized it was gone.
I’m not sure what changed. Maybe I just wore the idea out. Maybe the “hope” my treatments have brought has kicked that “one day” a little farther down the road.
My medical insurance is now covering Revlimid, which I am taking daily as a low dose maintenance medicine. I mentioned in an earlier post that my insurance company refused prior authorization for Revlimid as part of my chemotherapy and suggested my doctor use something they determined to be a “better overall value.”
I got a little angry at that, thinking my life might end sooner because they wanted to use a cheaper drug. I would leave this earth, arrive in Heaven, and God would turn and ask me, Scott – what are you doing here so early? I had a couple more years planned for you but I guess that darn insurance company messed things up!
I realized again that God knows the exact number of my days. The anger went away.