Cancer chain

This morning as I was leaving radiation I noticed a table full of gift bags. There are perks to being a cancer patient (please note these do not outweigh not being a cancer patient) and these perks usually include access to the deluxe coffee/hot cocoa machines (they are EVERYWHERE in the cancer clinics), muffins, cookies in the afternoon, occasionally juice and specialty breads. Today was a supreme day with juice bottles everywhere and multiple types of bread. I'm still having a fair amount of nausea so the muffins and bread are a no go, but juice sounded ok to me.

As I grabbed my bottle of juice I decided to check out the gift bags. Each one contained a paper chain with links that contain daily inspirational quotes. I decided I could use a little pick me up and grabbed the turquoise and white striped bag and off I went.

Before I tell you more about my cancer chain I need to explain why I chose the bag I did. It annoys me to no end that there are colored ribbons for each type of cancer. Turquoise and white are the colors for cervical cancer. I think the breast cancer people did a great job marketing the pink ribbons and pink as a support color and now it feels to me like I'm just a part of one of the other, uncool, copy cat cancers. Furthermore, pink has always been one of my favorite colors, yet I just can't and won't bring myself to choose anything that is obviously supporting breast cancer awareness or any other cancer. It just doesn't seem right and on a semi-crazy note it makes me worry that if I allow myself to branch out, I am opening myself up to having another type of cancer someday and my response to that is a resounding "NO THANK YOU!"

So the choices of bags were turquoise and white stripes, pink breast cancer ribbons, and purple (I think)? I also figured that more than likely most people would have no idea of the symbolism of the bag I was carrying.

The last thing my house needs right now is more clutter, so I decided that I would put my daily quote or affirmation or whatever in my blog post. This way I can share my little surprise and I can look back without having to hang on to anything extra. It's really kind of silly that something so simple makes me so pleased, but as kids my brother and I used to run a paper chain sweat shop each Christmas so there is something sentimental and sweet that I just couldn't pass up.

Today's saying: "Cancer is so limited...It cannot cripple love, It cannot shatter hope, It cannot carrode faith, It cannot eat away peace, It cannot destroy confidence, It cannot kill friendship, It cannot shut out memories, It cannot silence courage, It cannot reduce eternal life, It cannot quench the Spirit."

I also have to admit that I have been harboring a secret from my chemo days. The last 4 weeks of chemo Geoff and I discovered that one of the nurse's stations in the chemo area had a basket with chemo "flair." The other nurse's station had free hats, but since I wasn't going to loose my hair I felt like they didn't apply to me. When we discovered the basket of buttons it became a pseudo joke between the two of us. I would get up to go to the bathroom and I would come back to a surprise button. The sayings on the buttons are ridiculous and that was half the fun. I was even more surprised and excited when I got a less ridiculous, yet matching button in a gift bag from a friend. I love my secret cancer flair!

Favorite button is definitely the MRI one.