If only

This is something I haven't written about on here yet.  I've written drafts on my computer that never get posted.  I always felt it was something only I dealt with, something only I felt, and something only I dwelled on at times.  Today I decided that was all bullshit.

Have any of you ever thought about the "if only"?  The if only I had noticed I suddenly started needing more sleep, and started napping ever chance I got.  If only I didn't think that little thing I felt was nothing but a blocked milk duct, even though you stopped breast feeding a year ago; you had read about it happening, probably in some magazine or online, somewhere.  Plus, young women didn't get breast cancer.  You knew that because you read the risk factors, and it clearly stated that older women got the disease.  You checked off all the risk factors and there was no way you had breast cancer, so you ignored it.  These are just a couple on my "if only" list. 

They come to me at the most random moments.  Just tonight, after I showered, was getting ready for bed and was in the middle of brushing my teeth.  While brushing my teeth an "if only" struck.  Why?  It's been ten years.  Really 9 years 11 months.  June 23rd or something like that is my official ten year anniversary.  It blows my mind that after ten years with cancer, and chemo's, and radiation treatments, clinical trial after clinical trial, PET/CT scans like crazy, almost as much as ultrasounds, and a new set of boobs later "if only" still pops into my head. 

We are constantly told, it's not your fault.  There's nothing you could have done to prevent the cancer.  For breast cancer, they really just don't know.  You were young, healthy, at your prime, and BOOM!, it all blows away.  So why do the thoughts of "if only roll around in our heads at random, messing with our minds.  I know I can't be the only one who has this problem.  Why won't our brains just let us heal?  Why won't our brains just let us be happy and live life without the invading thoughts of "if only"?

I have more "if only" thoughts than I have medicines I take, and believe me, that's a lot.  It's really just a list of "if only" thoughts that haunt me.  I believe I have thought of all the "if only's" and they are on shuffle.  There is nothing I can do about it now, so why do they still plague me?

 Maybe it was the three months of your life that you were on birth control.  That is actually written in my chart, saying the fact that I took birth control for those three months, it is actually a factor for my getting breast cancer.  Three months.  It's just one of those things they have to ask, just like "do you have any family history of breast or ovarian cancer?".  So, in my chart it credits birth control.  But from my all of my doctor's point of view, it's a mystery.

It's a subject that bounces into my head at the oddest moments.  What about you?  Do you think about the "if only's" or are you fully grounded and able to block those thoughts out?  We are all different and deal with everything different.  I just wonder if I am the only one who thinks this stuff sometimes.  I know my "if only's" aren't the same as yours but it's good to know I'm not the only one out there.

xo


Shannon