I wonder when it will go away; the terror which occurs every time I have an ache in my body.  The assumption that the cancer has nestled in the receses of bone or blood. When does it stop becoming my ‘go–to’ self-diagnosis?  Or is it simply part of the new me.  The post-cancer me.  The me that lives with a small black cloud hovering just above my head waiting to turn me into Pooh as I hum, “tut-tut, it looks like cancer”?

And I realize now that I am not the only one in this household that thinks that way.  As I writhed in bed last night, unable to lie flat because of continuous muscle spasms in my back, I know that Mark was thinking the same thing I was; “It’s a tumor in her back, or lung, or bone.”  I ended up sleeping sitting up on the couch since every time I tried to get horizontal, the pain was excrutiating.  Before I finally and thankfully fell asleep, I spent quite a few hours thinking about how even if this was only  a muscular issue, that if the cancer does return, it could be like this.  I know many people now, through the Mother’s with Cancer blog that live with chronic pain due to their recurrance of cancer.  They live out their life on pain meds just to try and get by.  It is a scary thought, one I will try not to dwell on.  But I do wonder if there will ever come a day when a pain in my back will again be as simple as that, or if I am destined to always think this way.

Today the pain is still present but is being dulled by a  heavenly warm Ben-Gay patch .  If the pain continues another day or so I will have to eventually get it all checked out but I hesitate to put myself through a battery of  tests at this time as I know that with my history they willl probably scan my whole body.  Today I will assume it is just my back.  Tonight, in the dark, the fears may return, but for now I will assume the best and not be as Christpher Robin might call me, “a silly old bear.”