Call me NED

No Evidence of Disease, that's me and thank you God for keeping me relatively sane. As my post cancer time grows longer I see myself increasingly as a kidney cancer survivor, a person LIVING with cancer. Just after the diagnosis I saw myself as someone who'd experienced a slight glitch in the health department and all will be as normal. I've become increasingly aware that cancer is seldom over and it has placed me under a pall that I'm struggling to get over. Please understand, I'm healthy and extremely grateful for there are people who are engaged in a life or death struggle with so much grace it puts me to shame. Yet, for now, I'm struggling with a new and permanent image of myself that I'm loath to accept. "Aye, There's the rub", the accepting bit.

"scanxiety"

I learnt a new word today, scanxiety, that awful time when you wait for your scan results. I get it about 2 weeks before I've even made my appointment. And in that time I deliberately look up horror stories about kidney cancer and I've ordered a new book, "How we die". What the hell for? Why do I scare myself? To all intents and purposes, I've been very lucky, I was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2007, it hadn't spread. The bum-rap was however that in the urgency to remove my kidney, a second tumour on my renal gland was missed. So that was removed in 2008. I've been clean and clear and no trace of anything has even been hinted at. I've been clean for 2 and a half years... but I'm scared shitless!
On a more interesting note, or rather, a different note, research has identified bloggers as defining the resurgence of narcissism. And why? Because 40% of all bloggers talk about themselves! What the fuck else must I talk about, my neighbour's barking dogs, the people I meet in the gym or must I retell the stories I've heard today? I know I'm not the centre of the universe but I'm the only person on earth that I know inside and out. This is a wierd kind of public private space. I talk here, if someone wants to listen, that's OK. I read other Blogs because I like to hear what people say about themselves in their lives. If I want gossip, I'd follow a gossip column... or is there such a thing as a gossip blog? Don't know, don't care. So tell me about yourself, I'm a really good listener.