PTSD trying to forget about cancer

I have not been back to Gilda's Club (cancer support group) for many weeks now. I have been trying many things to "get over" this cancer and that was one of them, especially since a friend there was taken away. After an email and a call from a friend there, and I do miss them, I decided to go yesterday. I had not expected to see the husband of the friend that was taken away. It threw me for a loop. Remember my previous post/plan to just think of her as just someone I don't see anymore and then seeing her husband and her dog (she always had her cute lap dog with her) and her dog went to the chair where she always sat. Just another reminder that she is really gone. I also met a another with colon cancer who is in her thirties she was dx right after she gave birth and her baby is close to Trooper's age. It still shocks me every time I hear of someone else with this cancer.

Going there does not make me feel worse than when I do not go. It does not matter how far I run or how long I stay away from cancer places it is always there. At least there I do not feel alone. I really feel like I have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) from this. It is so weird to describe and I am not sure if you haven't been there you might not understand. I don't think I would if someone told me this. You would think she is done with treatments right now and tests are ok right now so be happy (I am for that) BUT with that now comes the hitting of what you have just been through and how that has forever changed you and the mental and physical scars that are left with you. And you can't get back to where you were before this.

There is this pressure to live life perfectly (since you have cancer and you might die), live life to the fullest, no regrets, do all you want to, be happy, don't sweat the small stuff, make every day/moment count yadda yadda yadda and all those "great" sayings. And of course I fail because real life gets in the way and doesn't care you are trying to live some great life now and just sucks you back down in the middle of stupid things.

Ok, so I give up on that since it is impossible and try and just go back to the old life, yet really I can't but I try and pretend and then I am mad about that since it really is only pretending and I can't pretend for very long. Cancer always comes to mind, and having dr appts doesn't really help! FYI, will be having another scope on Monday, totally caught me off guard when the dr said that, so now stressing about it, and not the procedure but the results of it. I really feel like I live dr appt to dr appt saying your ok for right now. Well, at at least that is what I say! The dr of course reminds that I have cancer. yeah, because I might forget I have cancer!

It is like this movie I saw (b.c.--before cancer) about a soldier who comes home from war. He is messed up mentally and his friends and family just don't understand. They think he should be happy that he made it out of the war alive when his friends didn't and why is he so messed up and why can't he be back to normal what happened to the person they knew.

I am happy for how I am doing right now but this is *still* hard to deal with and what I may have to deal with in the future.

I think everyday when I wake it will be ok and I will be alive for my kids and then it feels like I am asking and praying to win the health lotto. It just seems too much to hope for and too much to ask for. Why would I get the lucky health ticket.