Thread by @revdrduke

Today, I'm beginning my 5th year of living with stage 4 cancer.

Three years ago today, I was diagnosed with metastatic #leiomyosarcoma.

Four years ago tomorrow, I was misdiagnosed (the primary tumor in my thigh was dx'd as a DVT; the tiny nodules in my lungs were dismissed as benign scar tissue).

So now I've been living with #stage4cancer for (at least) four years, but I've only known I was living with it for three.

I envy the me of 2017, blithely living the last normal year of her life, ignorant of the trauma that was coming.

At the same time, I wish I could go to the me of 2017 to rob her of that last year of normality in exchange for a truth that would lead to more timely treatment.

It would be a tough trade, but it's one I would take. When sarcoma has only spread to the lungs, a patient will sometimes be given treatment options w/ curative intent (meaning the goal is to get rid of all the cancer).

But once sarcoma has also spread to the liver, a patient will instead be given the pity eyes from the people on her medical team.

Or at least that's what I was given.

And let me tell you, getting the pity eyes can sometimes be harder to bear than the actual facts of your situation.

But here I am, in defiance of the pity eyes.

Here I am.

The medical studies will always lay out grim statistics for stage 4 #sarcoma:
- overall life expectancy of 12-18 months
- 2-year survival rate of 30%
- 5-year survival rate of 16%

They will use words like "dismal prognosis" and "limited treatment options."

Those are all hard words to read and even harder to live with. One of the ways I deal with it is by taking those words as a dare.

Today, the first day of my 5th year living with #stage4cancer, is another step in taking the big dare - the dare to hope I can keep going.

I know a lot more than I used to about my limits. I know a lot more in particular about the limits of my control. I know more than I wish I did about how quickly and dramatically things can go wrong. But I also know more clearly than ever what I *do* have control over.

I don't have as much control as I wish I did over the course of my disease or the length of my life or even how I physically feel on any given day. But I have plenty of control over how I live the days I have. I have control over my perspective, thoughts, attitude, responses.

In fact, I'm the only one who has control over any of those things.

I have choices. And who knows how those choices might actually impact the things I seemingly have no choice about?

This morning, when one of my 16 year-old sons realized today was the anniversary of my diagnosis (and of my misdiagnosis), he said, "Happy Birthday! Let's get a cake for your cancer." And my other 16yo son said, "Seriously. We should get cake to celebrate."

I love their wry humor, their whimsical impulses, their sensitivity to time and milestones and memories, and their understanding that life is a gift to be celebrated. These are the attitudes I want to choose and keep choosing myself.

Such attitudes are not a denial of the awfulness of my (our) situation; they are a refusal to let the awfulness be the only (or final) word.

So. Here I am. On the first day of my 5th year of living with stage 4 cancer. In defiance of the pity eyes.

I know the truth. I choose the dare. Let's have cake.