The Gamble of Taking Your Health for Granted

Learn to cherish every breath

It was seven months ago to this very day that I found out I had cancer.

This is not the type of news anyone wants to receive. It brings a whole myriad of emotions bubbling to the surface. From sadness and despair one day, to guilt and fear the next.

Coming face to face with an uncertain future is a bumpy and emotional journey.

To know that you may no longer be around to smell the delicate fragrance of a flower or take a brisk walk in the rain is a painful realization to face.

Fortunately for me, after a series of treatments that culminated in surgery, the cancer was successfully removed from my body.

The invasive intruder had been repelled!

Nobody would blame you for thinking that this has left a number of totally new emotions in place of the old. A swap of the bad for the good, so to speak.

You would be partly correct.

Make no mistake, I am filled with gratitude and joy for my second chance at life. To once again spend time with my loved ones and take that beautifully refreshing walk in the rain again.

I feel something else though.

Anger.

Now before anyone tells me that I should just be happy and grateful for receiving the second chance that so many people do not get, let me explain.

There can be little doubt that finding out I had a tumor was a shock. It was a blindside I did not see coming.

Or did I?

The truth of the matter is that I did know something was wrong with me well before I received any diagnosis. But I kept it hidden for years.

Every time I went for a checkup and blood test, it came back with abnormal kidney readings. Combine that with dangerously high blood pressure, and it did not take a rocket scientist to know that something was up. This was not just the case once or twice, it was the same every time I visited the doctor.

The end result?

I told him I was feeling fine otherwise, even though that was not really the case. He would give me some blood pressure pills and then shoo me away.

At the time I was grateful for that. After all, I was far too busy to waste my time on a bunch of medical tests.

I had work to do!

In the meantime, I got sicker and sicker.

Fast forward in time a little bit and my life had changed quite significantly. I had retired and relocated to a province on the other side of my country.

While I still did not like going to the doctor, I did not have a good excuse to skip it anymore.

The first appointment I had with my new doctor, she ordered a number of blood tests. To no great surprise, they came back with the same abnormal results. Shocked that this had never been thoroughly investigated, she sent me for a C.T. scan.

The result of that scan was an unwelcome phone call on a beautiful, summer morning telling me that I had advanced cancer.

The rest, as they say, is history.

To be clear, I am not upset with my original doctor. Yes, he should have caught it, but things happen. The brutal truth of the matter is that I never really let him know how bad it actually was. I always told him I was feeling perfectly fine and that it was no big deal. He was not a mind-reader after all!

I saw my declining health as an annoyance that I chose to wave away and ignore. Work was far more important to me.

I paid the price for that. In many ways I still do today. It all goes much deeper than my scars.

Recovering from cancer leaves a whole new host of emotions in its wake. Anger at myself is one of those that I continue to deal with. I have learned however that when it comes to your well-being, you are your own best advocate.

As a parting word, I would implore everyone to take their health seriously. We sometimes have the bad habit of taking it for granted until it disappears. It is then that we realize just how valuable our health actually is.

While I had to learn this lesson the hard way, I now cherish every breath I take with an unparalleled intensity.

Life is a precious gift.

Time to go for a walk in the rain.