Progress

My doctor walked into yesterday’s appointment and said to me, “You look good, really good.”

I don’t know what she saw. I’ve felt healthy since the beginning of this ordeal. We noticed the cancer’s presence before it had time to work too much evil in my system, before it manifested symptoms. But also, the chemotherapy is working, and good as I felt on day one, I feel progressively better all the time.

“When I think of my cancer these days, I tend to think of it in the past,” I told her.

My doctor and the three nurses in the exam room all cheered.

“That’s the attitude that cures!”

It’s hard to know what came first. What is attitude and what is reaction to fact?

I do believe that visualization helps you achieve goals. Keep in mind a picture of what you want to do and the image helps you accomplish it; see where you’re going and it’s easier to get there. From the beginning I forced myself to focus on good scan results, to refrain from getting bogged down in thoughts and fears that the chemo would fail. But I’d been blindsided before; I knew these results were somewhat out of my hands. I didn’t want to be too devastated if it didn’t work out.

All in all, I remained as positive as I could. I got good results. The good results fed my positive attitude. Now it no longer feels like “attitude”. I look at where I stand in the overall picture and I see tumors nearly vanished. Where I came from is littered with cancer. Ahead I see me in a cancer-free state.

That’s what I meant when I said I see it in the past. But I need to remain focused, not get too far ahead of myself, and comply with all the steps from here to the end of the road. I may feel really good, but it’s not over yet.