I got in the car and turned on the radio. I liked the song that was playing but I quickly got itchy fingers. What if there was something better on another station? What should I do? I was enjoying the song but what if, what if, what if?

I have made it through the “big boys” of cancer treatment and feel relieved. And tired and excited and scared and thankful. And while I would like to feel as if the whole thing is “over,” I now have to live with the fact that having had cancer is not a cut and dry experience. Is anything in life?

I have so much recovery ahead of me, thanks to the drugs and radiation. I will still be getting Herceptin infusions every three weeks through next April. A Herceptin infusion is where a nurse sticks a needle in my port and I lie there and get drugs pumped into my veins for a few hours. It is not, I am sorry to say, a lovely cup of herbal tea at a trendy café.

I start Tamoxifen in a week or so. I will take this pill every day for five years if the side effects don’t get me. Remember the Freshman Fifteen? All that pizza and beer and ice cream that you consumed your first year of college? Well, I am now facing the Tamoxifen twenty. That’s right – most “young” women gain twenty pounds during their first year of Tamoxifen. I am not enthusiastic about this.

But never mind my whining about the treatment. The real problem is not chemo, radiation, Tamoxifen, Herceptin, or another twenty pounds. What is truly on my plate right now is the poorly differentiated nasty beast that grew in my breasts and now lives in my mind, if not my body.

None of us know what is going to happen tomorrow. But having had cancer presents my imagination with doomsday scenarios that are not only plausible but happening to some of the incredible young women in my cancer support group.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

I am not there yet. A huge part of my recovery process will have to be coming to terms with what might or not be growing inside and then letting go of the worry and fear.

There is so much left that I want to see and do. More than anything else I want to see all of my kids grow up. I met Antonio when he was seven and now he is a senior in high school. In my crystal ball I can see a day when he has a little baby and Granddad Steve is the happiest man in town. Cheryl’s baby hasn’t even been born and I can already picture her first day of kindergarten and me demanding of Cheryl that her daughter wear the dress that I gave her.

I just don’t want any of this taken away from me.

I also want to see the world. So many places to go! The train to Tibet. Cheering non-doping cyclists at the Tour de France. Back to Chile. Hiking the Na Pali Coast. Visiting Cherry in Hong Kong. Biking through Indochina.

But what I really need to do is savor this moment. My dog is happily sleeping and my dahlias are stunning. My cup runneth over with love and support. I do not have to find a better song on another station. Blessings have already come my way.