What if, tomorrow you started having headaches?
What if, 4 weeks later, a tumour was found in your brain?
What if, 1 day after that you found out that it was brain cancer?
What if, 2 days later, the tumour was removed and the rest of your life was in question?
How quickly would you press rewind and live it differently?
I write this for a friend. A friend who loves the simple things in life. A friend who never wanted more, because she was content with her existance. She is a mom and a wife. She takes pride in those titles.Her surgery happened on Wednesday for a tumour on the brain… A tumour she found out that she had on Monday.
Politically speaking, we really can’t say anything about our healthcare system with a turn around like that. However, the tumour was in the brain and spidered. So we’ll have to wait and see how a series of chemotherapy will assist her in saving her life and watching her children grow older.
As I write this, I’m wondering about the future. Will there come a day where she is no longer part of my daily life? Will I miss the phone calls? Or 15 years from now, will we be having a drink and laughing about this horrible period of her life? I sure hope so.
She looked at me today and said “Trina, don’t worry, it’ll all be ok. You can’t cry about it as it is what it is and we just have to deal with it.”
Yes, I totally understand that and I applaud her bravery. She has always been brave. Right now, even though I’ve known her for 10 years, she’s my new found hero.
However, this woke me up. She is thirty nine and must focus on her health, fighting the disease, and fighting for her life. Nothing else matters.
I realize that I don’t want to do that as I’m healthy and this is my time. I want to live my life as I choose. I want to take chances and make mistakes to follow my dreams. I want to live before anything happens may it be tomorrow or when I’m 90. Why take the chance?
Tomorrow, I have been invited to talk about my experience as a CBC Community Blogger for Election 2011, at the CBC News Centre in Toronto.
However, after visiting with other friend I expressed that I didn’t think I wanted to do it. I was just not in the mood to talk about Election 2011 after the events of the past week. My friend looked at me and said “This is what you are born to do. You take no money for it, but you love to inform people of what’s happening in your world. Why wouldn’t you do it?”
I thought about it for a while and I still wasn’t convinced. I had too much on my mind. My friend’s illness has taken over my whole train of thought. My husband looked at me and said the same thing my friend did.
Sigh…..I recanted, but I hope that my will to keep composure prevails on CBC tomorrow.
Knowing that life is too short, I said to my husband, “Hey it’s been years since we took off and rented a hotel room on a whim…how about it? Let’s go to Toronto now, not tomorrow.”
Fuck the credit cards…they will get paid.
Well, here I am as he sleeps. It’s been a great night at a HoJo in Yorkville.
GO Julie. You are my inspiration. You are strong. You are going to beat this. XOXO
