I am going for another Lupron injection on February second, which will last me through another ninety days. So I’m looking at my twentieth injection. It’s inevitable that the side effects following the injections  are powerful and set me back a few days, but it's ironic that they return as each cycle draws to an end. Then the whole process begins anew.  

As I approach the two year mark there is a possibility that the treatments will end by November. I am looking forward to the possibility of leading a normal life again. But after the hell of the procedure and the dizzying emotional drain during the following weeks—no, months –I learned another way of life.

Normal? You mean what, the way my life had been before the biopsies and sonograms, before the bone density tests and the full body scans? I have been emasculated and prodded and poked too many times to even imagine what ‘normal’ was like.  Anyone who has paid any attention to these chronicles has seen my pain and heard my anger and fear. I know who you are, and I want you to know how your support has lifted me when I was angry or morose. Your comments were a huge part of my cure. I know that I’ve struck chords in you as well, because cancer touches everyone in some way.  

Buthe unbridled truth is that I don’t know what ‘normal’ is anymore. What part of who I had been will return, and what may not. And how will I even recognize normal when I see it? I’d be a fool to believe that I will be ‘myself ‘again. That I will be whole.  

I’ll take some time to ponder what ‘normal’ might be now, and examine who I have become. Have I changed? Who knows. For the time being I will relax in my sweatpants and faded denim shirt, and watch every Indie  movie on my Roku. I’ll continue to live on my own schedule, munch on Baked Lays and Diet Coke. and joke with the caretaker Medicaid sends here three times a week.  But normal?  It’s like waiting for my old desktop to load. 

But as I near what might be the end of my treatment, I realize that my anger is depleted and my fear is gone.

 Acceptance has helped with that job.