What a treat this weekend, I had an opportunity to forget about my bladder cancer, if only for a few hours or so it was a treat nonetheless. As some of you may know my hobby is flying kites but even as a member of the Toronto Kite Fliers I haven’t been up to attending any flying events this year.  This weekend though I couldn’t resist, our club had a ‘fun fly’ down at Woodbine Beach in Toronto. It was great to see some of my longtime friends and fill some of the skies with art and color.

Although my intention was to put thoughts of cancer on hold for the afternoon it was hard to escape this deadly disease, I met an old kite flying friend ‘St’ who is a cancer survivor. He had Cancer of the esophagus 15 years ago and at the time was given 3 to 6 months to live but there he was flying kites.

We started talking about ‘incurable and terminal’ words which have been bouncing around in my head since I was told that my bladder cancer was incurable – he was terminal and he is still here.

We are all terminal.

None of us knows if we have a year, 10, 20 years or more. We just don’t know, I am sitting here in my office right now and I have an appointment at 11:30 driving there I could get into an accident and that could be the end.  The indestructible attitude we have as children dissipates as we get older and thoughts of mortality to creep in especially when we start to see so many around us dying of cancer.

It is hard work (for me) to turn my attention away from cancer I think about it a lot. Somehow those breaks like on the weekend help me ignore my cancer just a little bit., to feel normal, It seems like my whole life revolves around cancer. I’m tired of that. I wish for a day when I don’t have an appointment, conversation, errand, or anything else that has anything to do with cancer or it’s effect on my life.

I wake up it’s there, I shower look in the mirror I see the hair loss, making my early morning coffee I see the medications all lined up, 6 or 7 bottles more being added it seems every week.  Trust me this is not one of those pity parties I have talked about in the past – this is a reminder for me not to immerse myself 100% of the time in my cancer.

I felt better for my mini distraction, my advice to you is if you have something consuming you try to take ‘a time out’ you may feel better, I did.

A huge shout out to all my kite flying peeps, seeing you all made me feel normal again especially ‘Ke, St, Mar, Wa, Pe, Ga and those that have already checked in to see how I am doing.

Chill my friends and have a great day – unless you’ve made other plans.

Peter & (T)

Edited on the fly as usual.