Sometimes I feel like a laser-scorched, asteroid-dented, paint-chipped spaceship, hurtling through the stars. The ship runs, it does its job. It gets you from spaceport to spaceport, smuggling Voraxian spices. Sometimes you have to bang on the control console. Sometimes the quantum drives shorts out and you have to splice a few wires, but overall it works. But for how long? How long is that wiring going to last before it shorts out completely? How long can you keep the navigation data from becoming corrupted? How can you be sure that the Yog Crystals that power the engine aren't going to crack and chip?
People ask me constantly how I'm feeling and the answer is that I feel okay right now. But I have no idea what that means as far as what is happening to me internally. The cancer is still there. The cancer is not going to go away. Not completely. The cyst on my liver is there, but not active or cancerous...for now. Will it remain that way? Will the masses lining my esophagus decide to start growing again? Will the cancerous lymph nodes above my stomach become a problem? Chemo is keeping things contained, but how long can it do that? I wish I had some sort of gauge built into my arm that scaled from green to orange to red and could show me how things were tracking internally. I probably only have a few treatments left of the one chemo cocktail I've been getting. If you take it for too long, it can/will lead to permanent nerve damage - like constant tingling in the hands and feet and cold sensitivity, etc. I'll still be able to get the immunotherapy and the chemo pill form, but will that be enough?
It's also difficult, mentally, to balance the notion of carrying on as normal and things are okay versus thinking that maybe you don't have too many tomorrows and you need to take advantage of every second. One way of thinking seems to ignore the elephant in the room and the reality (and mortality) of the situation. The other way seems almost like throwing in the doomsday towel. Because I'm physically feeling okay right now, am I somehow tricking myself into an "all is well" mentality where I operate without the sense of urgency I should have? I have no idea.
I have this time bomb inside of me and no idea if/when it's going to blow. It's like a Jack-in-the-box playing its carnival song on loop. How many more analogies can I throw at you, lol?
But here I am still, hurtling through the stars in this beat up old ship. With a little luck, some duct tape, and a spanner wrench, I'll keep this bucket of bolts together, and I'll keep flying.