Where's The Beef!?

  For those of us who remember, there used to be a Wendy's commercial in which an old lady would look into a hamburger and yell, "Where's the beef!?" I'm not sure but I think that since I have been getting well again after a year since my lymphoma diagnosis began I have officially found the beef. You know, when you walk away from a remission report things tend to look pretty darn rosy. Suddenly, the sky is blue, the flowers are in bloom, the birds are singing and your whole outlook is a sense of amazement that can only come from a brush with death. You are a survivor! You should be wearing a t-shirt with a huge S on the front man! Then as time goes by life shows up once again. There's the morning alarm, the drive to anywhere (especially those of us who live in Los Angeles), the noisy neighbor, the cell phones, the long lines. Wait, where the heck did the sky go?! There in which my friends, lies the beef. A general jaded trudge through life's mud puddles with holey wellies.
 
  I didn't set out to find it but I somehow did. I think it sometimes starts with waking up feeling like poop on a stick and ends with me yelling, "Come on!" to some hapless teen driver-in-training who can't possibly hear me. Maybe it's just me but I hate grocery shopping. Oh I like lists, it's just the actual going to the store pushing around my hand-wipe washed cart around the aisles. The putting away is a drag also. Hmm...how long has this been in there? What the heck is it?! I've never even seen that! Well, we'll push it to the back and put some new stuff in. I could go on.

  This week I have a follow up with my oncologist. She will rub down my neck and underarms again to see if I have any lymph bumps. She will ask me how I am doing and tell me I have to have another scan. I have to say, I don't like these visits. It makes me uncomfortable but I am thankful for them. For the cancer patient in remission there is always that looming fear of the unknown.
 
  This visit puts life into perspective. Suddenly that beef went somewhere else. It all seems very small somehow. The alarm is almost welcome, the neighbor isn't so noisy, at least I have people who bother to call me and the kid is just learning how to drive. I figure if I can just walk out of that office with an ok pass for another three months I'm golden.
 
  I don't know. Maybe it's just me and I don't even know if anyone reads this stuff. I think we all need our reminders of how precious and fragile life can be. Right now I have one child serving on a Navy ship in Japan. I have another in Holland teaching. Every time I think about it, I am amazed and thankful that they are having opportunities that I have never had. I had my first at nineteen and have been a mother most all my life and at 45 with finally an empty nest was diagnosed with a Anaplastic T-Cell Non-Hodgekin's Lymphoma. A really long name for a nasty little illness. I am now just learning what it is to have time to do thing's without children. I have my whole life on the horizon and it looks pretty good from here. Hey? Did you just hear that little song bird? I think he was singing the song "Blue Skies."