There is always a black sheep

There is nothing like having had cancer to make someone more philosophical in nature.

I remember taking plenty of courses on statistics in university but never really saw the true relevance till I was presented with cancer statistics.

When first diagnosed, I was most concerned with the statistical chance that I would survive it. This is human nature.

Once I figured out that I'd likely be here next Christmas, I started delving into the other stats related to my treatment and to the side effects I would experience.

95% of people treated with anal cancer will lose their hair completely or else have 'significant' thinning of the hair they have. (The thinning is referring to losing over HALF of your hair...holy crap..)

I have long strawberry blond hair and I REFUSED to give it up. I vowed that no more hair would fall out of my head than before I started the chemo-therapy roller-coaster.

Did I?

Yes, I lost a few hairs but no more than I did on most days in Winter. God knows, I was always checking. I brushed it and brushed it waiting for the tell-tale sign but it never once happened.

If anything, my hair got curlier. The oncologists told me that sometimes yes, this does happen.

I am irish by background so this did nothing but add to my putting more faith in my heritage and the curly locks of the irish women we all remember.

Chemo-therapy drugs are toxic poisons to our bodies that kill off good, healthy cells as well as the bad boy cancer ones.

There are drugs that are taken to compensate for the nausea one gets from having a combination of drugs coursing through our veins via a PICC line. (One pill makes you bigger and one pill makes you small and the one the doctor gives you doesn't do anything at all...Go ask Alice...ok that was wierd...flashback to younger days.:)

I dutifully filled my prescription but left them at home on the first day of Chemo.

The nurses didn't want me to take the chemo drugs without the nausea drugs but I was hooped. They could not give me anything there as I drove myself in and had no one to drive me home 1/2 stoned and ready to sleep off the drug's effects.

"Give me the chemo", I said. "I'll take a pill when I get home."

I get rigged up with the drugs in my hip pack and walk out of the cancer centre with over 100,000.00 in gene therapy and chemo drugs and go home to find myself NOT being nauseous at all.

Why take a drug if we don't have to right? My body was probably thanking me for not adding to the cocktail of toxic drugs that were already on-board and looking for the cancer cells in my body.

Did I get nauseous? Nope....Did I sleep a bit more than normal? Yup, I did but I DID NOT get sick once.

When I was first diagnosed with anal cancer, I researched it for weeks. I wanted to know where I was right now and where I could potentially be going as a 'road trip', of sorts.

I found though that once I got to a certain point of knowledge acquirement, I felt safe and I felt comfortable in what the game-plan was going to be and how it was going to effect my body and my life in general.

Sure I perused the chat boards reserved for us people that are 'stricken' with cancer. It provides a lot of people with solace and comfort and I'm sure gives everyone a sense of belonging when all the stories are basically the same.

I think I stayed active on the boards for about 3 weeks into treatment and then one day I woke up and didn't feel a need to 'check in' on a daily basis anymore.

It was like passing a certain point on your first bike-ride where your mom and your dad step back and just let you go. You look over your shoulder and you're secretly glad that you don't need them anymore. You can do it alone now.

You've seen what its like and you've had enough time to accustom yourself to the game.

There were others on the boards that had been NED for years but still felt a need to be with others like them.

In a strange way, I am really no different.

I am helping others with cancer but I'm not looking to get support from others like me. I am wanting to give support to others like me.

Is there really a difference?

Some of us need to cry on someone's shoulder in a time of need. Some of us need to reach out and help someone else to get the help that we need.

I sometimes feel robbed in this cancer experience although I feel so blessed and I am so thankful to be writing this...so far anyways..:)

I never lost my hair and frankly, I'm doing pretty damn good only being well, 2 months out of treatment now.

I get the distinct feeling from other 'survivors' that I didn't really have a 'bad' cancer because my treatment protocol was so short and so 'uneventful.'

Its somewhat like your 'bike' is not as good as my 'bike' is. This bike has been through way more crashes than yours has so is that much better.

What the hell is up with that?

Why can't we all just agree that we had cancer and just leave it at that?

Cancer makes some people so damn bitter...hehehe

Its really odd talking with other anal cancer survivors...(4000 diagnosed in N. America last year. My oncologist has only treated it one other time in his 35 year career.)

I had a clinical trial protocol that is completely different than anyone else's. I did not get to experience what everyone else did.

I had 3 times weekly visits with psychologists as part of my research team and have nothing but awesome things to say about these people...(you rock guys !)

Fellow 'ass' cancer people are fearful of the treatment that I had as its un-proven.

I'm a 'black sheep' of sorts among the masses and I think it makes them feel insecure that things are changing now.

Statistically I am an odd-ball in this game and I sometimes wonder why this is.

Why are the statistics so very different than my experience?

I think the power of the mind is an amazing thing. It is what sets one thing apart from another and makes us lay awake at night and wonder why these things happen as they do.

It takes a black sheep to makes things change. Its always the black sheep that bends the rules and bounces over the curbs instead of gently hitting them every now and then.

The world needs a few more black sheep.