Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would be diagnosed with a second type of cancer. Having bravely fought the first battle with less than acceptable odds, I survived minus a leg, a healthy head of hair and and terribly depleted ego. But I survived realizing the leg and hair were the trade-offs and my ego would recover.

Twenty five years later and who knows how many cigarettes I smoked between the ages of 15 and 45, lung cancer grabbed a hold of my lung. Took 11 months to diagnose what should be have been found the first time I told my doctor something was wrong. Since smokers are considered losers,not enough money has been spent on finding ways to diagnose lung cancer. Once it is big enough to show up on a chest X-ray it's usually too late. Or in my case it was big enough and should have shown up on an X-ray but it didn't. Due to my self advocacy I was finally able to get an CT Scan done. Low and behold there it was. So it took 9 months longer to get diagnosed. That nine months may be the reason I'm now diagnosed as terminal. Even my doctors believed I would survive after removal of the lower lobe of my right lung, but that 9 extra months only gave the tumor that much more time to ravage my body making recovery impossible. Starting at a Stage 1 A (least deadly stage) dropping instantly to Stage IV (termanl stage) when a new spot was diagnosed on a bone changing the diagnosis to a new and deadlier name, Lung Cancer which has metastasized to the bone.

I can get through this I keep telling myself. There is a l% survival rate after 5 years. Hell I can be that 1% person. After all, I already have lots of experience with cancer, testing, oncologists, chemotherapy, mental therapy, group support and grieving stages. I certainly have all the tools. But they don't seem to be working.

Opting out of chemo as it was only going to add a couple of months time and due to almost dying from side effects after my surgery I opted for pallative care rather than aggressive chemotherapy. Even through the chemo of today is nothing as bad as it was 25 years ago when I went through it, I always said I would never do chemo again unless I had great odds for a cure.

Why would I want to put myself through months of chemo to add on a couple of months of life. I'd rather have good quality time while I'm here and enjoy my life. I do question periodically if I have made the right decision or have asked myself if I gave into the cancer too easily, particularly when I see people ravaged by long term chemo continually putting themselves through it as there lives slip more and more out of their control and into the control of the chemo. I don't know if I'm helping my l% odds but I sure feel better than my chemo friends.

Does the fear of dying grab hold of us so tightly that we truly can not decide what's the best thing to do. I feel better and look better than my chemo friends but will I be sorry later when I'm on my last leg and they still have several months of life ahead of them? Or will it be life or existence.

Over the past 8 months, I have become my own worse client. A counselor by profession who has now become someone emotionally out of control who can't do for herself all the things she tells her clients to do to help themselfs during bad times. I am being forced to look at why I'm so special that having many of the same emotional needs as my clients is so wrong and then add in the out of control state of my feelings...I'm a mess and hate feeling so out of control in all areas of my life.

I loved my old life of being in control of my life and everyone elses; independent, single and loving life on my own. Rarely asking for help and always being unable to work out a solution to all my problems, living from goal to goal helped me build and live a very successful life, but tools that helped me build my life are making it nearly impossible for me to live out my remaining days with any kind of peace.

I'm one of the lucky ones who has wonderful family and friends all of whom have risen to the challenge of helping me get through this latest ordeal. But I don't want to ask help from them for fear I will have burned them out before then end when I will really need them. I spend my days holding in gut renching feelings just so I don't have to tell my family and friends how I'm really doing. I don't want them to feel my pain or to cause them any pain, yet under the circumstances I don't I know that is not being realistic. I've been told I'm taking away their ability to give me their support and emotional gifts and that I'm not responsible for their feeling, they are. When I have given my whole life both personally and professionally to helping others it is not easy to switch overnight to being a full time taker.

Without Hospice I would probably be looking for ways to end things sooner, but that's for another time.