Eleven Years Dancing On The Edge

It seems impossible that I've spent another 365 days dancing with cancer and incredible that I'm alive to experience this eleven year anniversary. The living done in the time and space between here and there is quite humbling. These past twelve months have been spent savoring time, fulfilling dreams, treasuring family, and embracing hope.

Along with family and friends, I've celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas, another New Year, vacations, and college for my girls. There have been LiveStrong Summits and LiveStrong Challenges. There has been the blending of old friends with new. Hope has been written in the sand from California to Ireland and back home again. A dream came true with the first of what I hope will be many Liver Symposiums, lots of YES, and in every event the magic of making memories. I've marched the Halls of Congress numerous times this year (Cover Your Butt with C3, CCCIA with NCCS, continued medicare coverage for brachytherapy with Sirtex). A monumental moment was meeting Senator Kennedy earlier in the year and being mentioned by Senator Hutchison during her introduction of the Kennedy-Hutchison War on Cancer. I was there to see it happen!

I've made it through more chemo cocktails and have cheerily decided to call my weekly treatments "happy hour". I am thankful every day for the Sir-spheres which allowed me to take another treatment step. I am grateful for the research and insurance that has let me survive and thrive. Those are the good things. When not so great scan results have materialized, I've taken the time to process the information by candidly throwing feed buckets and hay around in the barn. (My horses let out an occasional whinny but otherwise seem to understand.) I've survived another blood clot, an infection or two, external beam radiation, cyberknife, and intrathecal chemo.

I lost two uncles to cancer this year. At the same time my father brought fruition to "preventable, treatable, and beatable" with his colonoscopy, surgery, and recovery.

Life is full! As my friend Tommy said, "You are living: colon cancer is just hitching a ride." My friends Julia and Jean talked about the balance of 11. That's fitting for my eleven year anniversary. While none of these activities would have been chosen, they have provided my life with great equilibrium.

There is no better balance or perception of life than when dancing on the edge of a cliff. Eleven years of living with stage IV cancer has not only taken me dangerously close to the edge but granted me great clarity. With each step there are ups and downs, ins and outs, the unknowns, the spontaneous energies of balance - death and life, good and bad, despair and hope - that are there to embrace. Nestled in the "all of it" there is significance that lets us conquer and excel, that adds to the beauty and splendor, and gives credence to the astonishing, the amazing, and the awesome! For those of us who dance on the edge it is important to grasp the promise that lies in the next step as each one brings more options, better treatments, and very soon- a cure.

Wanna dance?

Suzanne