Getting to my feet.

   Standing on the edge of at least a 1/4 inch precipice of a rug that tied the room together I peered at the book lined shelves of an acquaintances library. I leaned a little too far forward, lost my balance and toppled into his shelves. I brought a few books down to the floor with me. At least I didn't follow Woo's example that night and pee on his on rug. That's been known to happen, but this Chinaman is not the issue!  Instead I quickly gathered and reshelved the books hoping nobody had noticed my fall. They hadn't, it would've been okay if they had. Everyone at the party that night knew I had just gotten out of the hospital and that this was my first foray back into a semblance of a social life.
   Twenty one months ago the doctors found a large mass growing in my bladder. Diagnosed as invasive stage 3 bladder cancer it meant the bladder had to go before I did. The surgery went fairly well, but the recovery did not. I ended up spending 3 months hospitalized for various complications. I lost 60 lbs in that time, a lot of it muscle. Also gone was my coordination and balance. So now I'm 18 months cancer free, physically I'm doing fine. I put the weight back on, started Tai Chi about a year ago to help with the balance and coordination issue. I do tend to fall into the gumption traps with my recovery. That's a head problem not a physical problem, or maybe it's a heart problem. I just don't have the heart (the gumption) to get back into the the working world of 9 to whatever. It doesn't bother me much to get up and drive Shari to work but the thought of driving myself to work to do some pointless piece of business leaves me cold. The world can get by without another power point presentation.
  I feel vaguely guilty about this. I count myself among the 10% unemployed. I go through the motions of job hunting I apply for two to three jobs each week, I send out some resumes and occasionally go to a job fair or an interview, but my heart's not in it. I suspect that prospective employers sense that and pass me by. Partly it's depression. I've gone from catheters to Depends to pads, - back to catheters, peeing through a tube then sitting to pee, now back to standing to man size diapers as nighttime apparel. It all pisses me right the hell off.
   I take that as a good sign. A sign that I am in fact coming back, feeling good and getting up to speed. Despite the self absorbed whining I'm doing here today, I'm better than I was a few months ago. Not as good as I will be but I'm getting to my feet. This time I hope they're watching.

This is the first thing I've posted about BC in a while. In my anger and shame I said some unkind things about some folks that surely didn't deserve my ire. Bladder cancer is the 4th most common form of cancer among men and 5th most among women in the US. It gets under-publicized, and underfunded. The Bladder Cancer Advisory Network - BCAN or CBCAN in Canada  are organizations devoted to spreading the word and getting information to those such as myself. I'd like like to thank them for all the hard work they have put into helping folks.