The Daily Writing prompt asks today – What makes you nervous?

As I’ve gone through life tons of things made me nervous. First dates, getting married, raising children, advancing at the job, and many more. But with the benefit of time and experience comes a little wisdom.

Most of those things I was nervous about, always were improvements and taking the next positive step forward.

But today what makes me nervous is my health. Yeah, I know, selfish me, always worried about me first. Well if I’m not here I can’t do any good for anyone else, so there. I wasn’t nervous, in the least, for the first 5 decades of my life about my health.

Then one day you’re sitting at work in the morning, and the doctor calls and says you have cancer and I’ve made an appointment for you this afternoon at the Univerisity of Maryland Medical Center. Then a few years later another call and, another cancer.

Getting my cancer testing results gets me nervous. I get tested every 3-6-9-12 months depending on the results of the previous one. I’m not sure if life is like baseball, but I’m certainly not looking for my 3rd strike. That in-between time can be filled with unease if you let it.

This has gone on now for 15+ years and it wears you down. It’s mentally taxing. You try to forget about it in the time between the test but there is that date. And as that date approaches it’s not the bloodwork, the scans, or the other tests that cause the nervousness. It’s going to the office to speak to the doctor about the results.

Like a lot of other cancer survivors, I’m guessing many have perfected the art of living each day in between better than the last. As the Header of my Daily To-Do list reads. “Make the rest of your life the best of your life”

But the voices and reminders are there for me and others. The surgical scars I see in the morning stepping out of the shower. The email reminders from the American Cancer Society of the V Foundation asking for more money. Other friends and family fighting cancer. Some stark reminders, like this week, that it’s so often a killer. And when your doctor starts to increase the frequency of your testing that anxiety level increases.

So I have a few months till my next visit. And I was doing pretty good till the daily prompt asked me what made me nervous and BANG like a sledgehammer, the reminder. Thanks, now I have to focus the rest of the day to get it out of my head again. Maybe you can be a little more thoughtful before asking questions like this.