Unexpected

Never in a millions years did I think I was going to get cancer.  No one does.  I mean some people who worry a lot think they are always going to get cancer, but they think they are going to get hit by a bus, die on a plane crash, or win the lottery.  But I never really gave it much thought.

It's not that I lived such a spartan and healthy lifestyle that the prospect of contracting cancer was beyond my comprehension.  Nor had 23-and-Me assured me that a strain of cancer wasn't lurking in my DNA.  Nor am I such an optimist that I figured this couldn't happen to me - of all people.  It honestly just never crossed my mind.

As it so happened, I did coincidentally lead a lifestyle whose habits and consumption would not generally lead one to conclude that after 25 years of smoking or diet soda (pop) I was destine to pay the price for it.  And I don't live in an impervious bubble of denial such that I was so presumptuous to imagine cancer would never come knocking on my door.  I guess my mind was consumed for the past 60 some odd years (at least the thinking and coherent years) with lots of other needs, wishes and responsibilities - such that cancer never crossed my mind.  And I am not advocating that this topic should be on anyone's late-night "I can't fall asleep" roster.  But who really thinks about things like this?!?  I didn't.

In retrospect, I'm not sorry that I didn't squander a lot of time giving it much credence, because that wouldn't have stopped my disease from happening in the first place.  And I can't ascribe to the concept of wasting even a nano-second of valuable time or brain-space concerned/consumed about things that I can't prevent.  So here we are.  I got it.  I'm dealing with it.  And worrying or not worrying about it had no bearing on my medical outcome.  My advice in conclusion: Change the things in life that you can (there are more than we realize), and don't waste time worrying about the things that you can't change (there are more of them as well than you realize).