The past, the present

My children channel pop stars of the 80's.  When Karina was in middle school, she would say she could never wear any pair of jeans because they would 'bunch funny' in the front and everyone would notice. However, no one would possibly notice the Pat Benatar-eque outfit she wore three out of every five days of the week.  The same outfit.  Naw.  Karissa dresses more like Cyndi Lauper.  Sometimes the color combinations about put your eye out.  Karina always complains, "You would have NEVER let me out of the house dressed like that!"  She is right.  1) I don't teach full time at the school Karissa attends; 2) the probability of my mother seeing her is very low; and  3) I don't have a time machine because now I realize that how she dresses is not really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

I've been reading the stories of other survivors of head and neck cancer.  Lots of brutal treatment.  Lots of long term side effects.  Lots of changed lives. While it is good to know I'm not the only one, it is still overwhelming to see so many people being brutalized by this disease.  Here is one prime example:
http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/latestlocalnews/1798852-8/cancer-stealing-country-djs-voice

Yesterday was a pain day.  The left side of my neck was so swollen and so tight that it was pulling on everything.  Two doses of Motrin, which I haven't had to resort to in weeks.  We did go on our date night, though.  I am a cheap date- we ate at home first as I'm not restaurant friendly.  We went to the $2 movies to see The Butler, which was a GREAT movie.  I'm also not concession stand friendly, so $4 was our total outlay for the evening.  If we had had ramen noodles for dinner, it would have been like being in college again.

"If you can't change your fate, change your attitude." - Amy Tan

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."- Maya Angelou, who happens to have the same birthday I do.

I've been concentrating very hard on my attitude since it is one of the few things within my control. However, my mind does wander to the what ifs... the things you would, or might, change if you could.

What if I had opted for chemo last time?

What if I had had a PET scan at the three year mark?

What if I had asked for a biopsy instead of just having the wisdom tooth pulled?

This is a slippery slope because there are, at least for me, plenty of times in my life I could go back and do it a bit differently if I could.  Some are those benchmark decisions where, even at the time, you know this is momentous.  Others are small choices that seemed so insignificant at the time, but later proved to be pivotal. What would you change?

I've been rolling around in my head all sorts of ideas.  Roughly 147 people have said, "You should write a book."  What does 'write a book' look like?  How do you get started?  What would I write about, besides Cancer, obviously.  I think tomorrow's post will be about why I could/would/should write a book and what that might look like.  I'll be looking for A LOT of input.  Except for titles.  Titles I've got.  Maybe I'll just write a whole book of titles...

Until tomorrow...