Sometimes people tell me that I’m the strongest person that they have met. They admire my strength to go through the battle I’m going through. 

I’m not strong. 

In fact, I’m very weak and puny, like a little field mouse running from a tractor, trying to find a way out of a field that’s being plowed. I’m not strong at all, but I do the things that the doctors say to do to live. It’s not like I really have a choice. Well, I do. It’s a choice to do what the doctors say to live, or not do what the doctors say and die a slow death. 

But I feel like the latter choice is kind of a foolish and weak thing to do on my part. I know people think I’m strong, but really I’m just trying to survive. It’s not by choice that I have to do surgery, chemo, radiation, immunotherapy, surgery, chemo, surgery, chemo and now more radiation. These things are not what I signed up for because I thought they would be fun or because it was the easiest option. These things are things I’ve had to do because If I didn’t, death was the only other option. Just like my craniotomy. I did not want to have that surgery at all. No one wants to have some of their brain cut out. I asked so many questions and asked multiple different ways for other options. But the doctor explained if I didn’t have the tumors taken out I would have a matter of three weeks to live. 

So, these treatments and surgeries that I have are not just for fun. I know it seems like I bounce back from them somewhat easily, and I’ve been very fortunate to be so strong, but every single time they are life threatening and serious. Every single time I become weaker and weaker.  When I have radiation to my brain, I can tell that some part of my old self fades away. I become a new person I don’t want to be. I act differently, talk differently, and think differently. Some people might not notice, but my close friends and family notice that I change with every little beam of radioactive light that goes through my skull. 

Every chemo week, I can’t eat past 3pm because if I do I’ll wake up sick in the middle of the night because my stomach is so bloated. When my friends want to go out on Fridays, I either have to choose missing out that night, or not eating while sitting there and watching everyone else eat while I drink water. I don’t want sympathy, but these are the choices I have to make when on the outside it looks like I’m doing all fine and dandy. 

The choices get easier to make as time goes on, but it’s still exhausting to always have to make so many choices about my health. It consumes everything. Time and time again I think I’m in the clear for at least a short period. I get excited every time that I get a little freedom from the appointments and scans. I start planning trips outside of Tennessee, and then cancer comes back with a bang. It always requires surgery or radiation and it ruins everything. That’s when I’m not tough. I get discouraged and angry. I get frustrated because nothings been working to stop this cancer that engulfs my body. My brain and heart are like a sponge for cancer. I just want this to go away but it’s not and probably won’t. I still pray that it will.