Behind the blog name - Name Change

Name change.  The original name of the blog was Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny.   The line in the title is from a Bruce Springsteen song.   Nothing can be wrong when Bruce Springsteen is singing.

After sharing the blog I came to realize that the name was for me - but didn't work in the sharing environment and I wasn't sure how people would react - so - name change to Sharing my journey was more fitting.   Still hold that Bruce Springsteen song in my attitude toward this new journey so Bruce - you're still with me.

This blog is about my cancer journey.   Cancer is ugly, it's everywhere, it ruins lives, it takes away people we love, it puts people in hardship, causes intense stress and anxiety.   There's also another side to cancer stories.    

When I think back on my memories of my parents who both died from cancer each after a 7 year on and off battle, I don't think of the pain and ugliness but rather the good things, the funny stories, the positive things it brought to me and my family.   I miss my parents terribly and most right now.  

Cancer took our parents away from us as a family but it also brought us together, it made us stronger, it made us take stock in what was important in life and stick tight to our dreams and values, it taught us how to handle the horrible times and know that we would come out of it ok in the end, changed but ok.   And most importantly we learned that it was ok to laugh in those times and celebrate life. 

I don't remember how my mother looked while going through chemo but I do remember the funny things she would say when she was on medication or had hit the tipping point of listening to others complain.   I remember the stories we'd share at family dinners we'd try to have nightly after a day of spelling each other off in the hospital.  I remember after she died that a few of us got lost on the highway trying to get home.

I choose to focus not on the pain, the discomfort, the sickness, the diagnosis, the survival rates but rather on the journey and the good stories, the lessons, the sharing, the love and the strength that we find in ourselves as individuals and as family and friends.  And that during this journey we will find many opportunities to "Look back on this and it will all seem funny".