It looks like my future will involve petting tigers, riding elephants and smelling ratchaphrueks after all!!!

I've mentioned this before, but it's now very important for me to keep setting long term goals. I've learned more about my prognosis lately and I'm now able to even type that as I've been a little upset about it this week, hence the absence of posts. I know that a lot of people who read this think that I'm so strong to be able to deal with this etc., but I do get very upset about the fact that I have a 48% chance of seeing 40. I can also look at it in a positive light (no one knows that they'll see tomorrow, let alone 10 years away), but I have my days when this simply devastates me, don't think otherwise. The other day I was on the phone with a friend talking about plans for my upcoming birthday and she said "I'll bet you're not dying to turn 30, right?" I wonder if she immediately wanted to take that comment back. I hope so. I try and just shut my eyes for a second and breathe when people make comments without thinking first how they're received, and I have to forgive this on a daily basis as I realize that people of course don't mean to be careless with words, but yes, in fact, I'm dying to turn 30. I'm looking forward to every birthday I have in my future. I'll cry if I get to 40, but not because I'm sad that I'm getting older, it'll be because I beat the 'odds'. It sucks, sure, it might be hard to read for those of you reading it, but it's still true nonetheless. People that have gone through cancer I'm guessing are similar to me. You no longer think of getting old as a burden, you no longer have those "I don't want to grow old" thoughts; you welcome the opportunity to do so. At 29 I don't know how long my future will be, but I know that I've had to think such thoughts younger than most do. My prognosis is really just a bunch of numbers, I'm trying not to put stock into a bunch of numbers. I mean, there was a less than 1% chance of me getting cancer at this age, so I'm the last one who should look at playing the odds, right? But I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't come into play when thinking about my future plans, it's just simply a reality I live with now. Anyway, I'm fine to grow old, bring it on, I'm not upset about it in the least. I'm looking forward to 30. Then 31, 32, you get the picture... I do get extremely upset about what I'm going through, but I am lucky to be able to -for the most part- look at it objectively. I'm still an optimistic realist. :) My positive days far outweigh my negative ones so I try not to beat myself up too bad when my mind goes through its destructive phase. It's normal on some level I'm sure.
So, back to long term goals. I now have the travel itch back. This was muted a bit when I got together with Shawn as he's never been that interested in travel and we weighed all our wants with needs back when we bought a house together, and discussed what was really important to us as far as building a future together. I mean, he changed his profession back when he realized that he wanted to eventually start a family with me one day. He knew that massage therapy would only get him so far before his hands were ruined, and then what would he do to provide for his family? So he decided to get involved in his current profession, which is... I'm not even sure what you'd call it. His boss is a landscape architect, and Shawn builds stone decks, columns, stairs, etc. He's not in landscaping but he's not a stone mason either. Anyway, he loves it and that's all that matters! He is doing this so that in the long run, he'll have a career in it and be able to one day start his own business. I love that he's gotten into a trade as that's where the money is (and tradesmen are so hot!), but first you have to put in your time. We agreed that for the first few years, I'd be bringing in the bucks and he'd learn his trade, so that in 5ish years, when we'd be ready to start the family, he'd be far along in his field and I'd be making big money by then too. But we'd be okay if I took time off to have babies at that point.

This summer our whole long term plans went up in smoke. Not to say that our future will not play out that way, but there have been unforeseen obstacles let's say. For example, I've moving further and further away from my thinking of having children. That is such a crazy paradigm shift for me, truly. It's not something I've ever questioned until now, but I just no longer know if that's in the cards. Even when I realized I may not be able to physically have children, I knew I'd adopt. I no longer am so sure about that either. I'm not saying I won't, just that I'm not as sure as I once was. I can't imagine not having kids in my life, but I don't think I imagined dealing with cancer and my own mortality at the age when I'm supposed to be thinking about a wedding and babies and other such things. You just never know what life throws at you. And then there's the biological versus adoption question. If I am able to get pregnant after all this, will I even want to? I remember not to long ago when the most devastating news of my diagnosis was whether I'd get to carry a baby. It's really not that devastating anymore. Would I even chance trying to have kids? What if I passed cancer on to them? This is I'm sure why I haven't gone for genetic testing yet. They at the hospital(s) keep asking me if I'd done it yet, but I keep saying I will even though secretly I'm not sure if I'll ever get this done. Do I care to know? I don't see the point of knowing unless I plan on having kids. So if I'm even able to have children and if I decide I may want to get pregnant then I'll go and get tested. Besides, I'm not supposed to really try for kids in the next 3-5 years anyway. That is when I'm at my highest risk of recurrence and being pregnant can up your chances of a recurrence so I won't be taking that chance during the next period in my life. And then once that period passes, then what? Who knows? Will I want to spend the rest of my life taking care of kids and all the complications that will go along with that? Do I tell my hypothetical kids that I have had cancer when they get to that age of understanding and scare the crap out of them? Or do I not tell them and have them resent me for not sharing the news if I get a recurrence or worse, I'm not there for them when they realize I knew this day would come all long and they live with that? Do I leave Shawn with kids to take care of when I have no life insurance and will now never qualify for any? Shawn, the one who never wanted kids until he started dating me? Is that fair? Does that now fit in to my new reality? Or do I not have kids, live to be 60, and regret having spent the latter of my life preparing to die instead of living? Who has these answers? I just have no idea but all of this weighs me down on a regular basis, don't kid yourselves.

The one thing I have taken out of this is that I want travel in my life. I received an email from my aunt in Spain last week, and this prompted my thinking about travelling again. She was describing her leisurely travels with my uncle through Europe, and I remembered how for most of my life I've wanted that too. I've always wanted to see Europe and more than that, I've always wanted to experience Thailand. I was so jealous that my parents took that trip before I did. I've always wanted to go to Thailand but was resigned to the fact that it probably wouldn't happen. It's so expensive and I couldn't really justify that expense when we're buying a house to renovate and we're saving all our money for that, then we'll be saving all our money for a wedding, then saving all our money for a family, etc. That's how it goes, right? You don't take a few thousand dollars out of that dream to go off to Thailand just because you want to. That's selfish. Well, I'm back to wanting to go to Thailand and now I'm pretty sure I'm going to, selfish or not. I'm not going to deny myself that itch that's been bothering me forever. I'll be going to Thailand one day. It's now back on the top of the list. I decided to break the news to Shawn the other day. We were sitting quietly, and I was thinking how I'd tell him that one day soon I'm going to Thailand with a friend and he'd have to deal without me for a few weeks and he'd have to be okay with me spending the money to do so. I didn't have a specific friend in mind, but I knew of about 5 friends that if I mentioned this trip to, they'd be all for it. Right then he asked me what I was thinking, so I told him that I'd been thinking about travelling a lot again, and I really really wanted to go to Thailand. I was rambling my rationale and he just listened. Then after I paused to take a breath, he said "Well, we can't just do Thailand. We have to see other places too if we're going to do a trip like that and I just don't want it to be all Asia. What about Europe?" I was incredulous. "WE?!" "Since when have you wanted to travel?" Well, he said, he would love to see other parts of the world, there was just many other things that previously took precedent. Shawn doesn't love to fly, and he also doesn't love the water, so I thought travel was the last thing he wanted to do. But he said that his thinking lately has changed too, and he'd really like to experience other places, and he'd like to do that with me. I was so touched and so very grateful to hear him say this! But I wasn't convinced this was anything more than him appeasing me at this moment. Remember I'm the one who throws dinner in the oven with reckless abandon without first preheating the oven completely while Shawn runs behind me taking it out saying you have to wait until the little red light turns off. This is us in a nut shell. If he's agreeing to Thailand and even suggesting a tour of Europe first, I need to make this a reality while I have that window of opportunity. So I say when, assuming now is when Shawn will say that once we get all our debt paid off, and once we save enough for x, then we can start to squirrel away for a trip, etc. This is not what I heard at all. He said, how much would it cost, $15,000? I state of course not! I think we could do 2 weeks in Europe & 1 week in Thailand for half that! He said, okay, if that's the case, then if we get our debt paid off and then save $3000, we could put the rest on credit and do it. I can't believe my ears. There is no one in the world that I would want to travel anywhere with more than Shawn and not only is he expressing interest in this but also thinking of how it can be a reality and planning accordingly. I want to cry at how much I love this man! So that's settled. Once I get healthy and am able to get back to work, I'm going to plow away and save my pennies to pay off our current debt, which isn't that bad, then I need to put 3k in the bank and then I can book our tickets to Europe with a jaunt to Thailand. Hee hee! This is such great news and I think about it all the time. It keeps me motivated to see the longer goal and just keep looking at that instead of anything else. I'm pretty sure I'll get to see Thailand and many other beautiful places along the way. And who knows where we'll go after that if Shawn enjoys seeing the world! What I do know is that everyone has a list of things they want to do and see in their life, and that is one of mine. So to get to cross that off the list and have that experience and then start to plan the next one? What more could I ask for out of this life?