"You're dying of cancer."

Pow. Right between the eyes. I knew this, but it hadn't been put that bluntly before. I like this doctor. I hate sugar-coating and not being told something 'because it will upset you.' Absorbing it is another matter.

I. Am dying. Of cancer. No risk factors for it, can't speak to family tendencies as I'm adopted and will never know anything about my biological father. I've met my birth-mother's family, and no cancer there. Both of my parents - my real parents, the ones who raised me from birth but with whom I share no heredity, died of lung cancer. Both were heavy smokers. Never took a puff in my life - always thought it stank badly so I was never once tempted. But this started with oral cancer, on my tongue.

Of which I am dying. Seriously didn't think this would be what got me. Having had a lifelong weight problem, I would have expected heart disease. But my heart is strong, my lungs too. But I'm still dying. My cancer metastasized, and tumors are wrapping themselves around the base of my skull. Cancer is eating my skin as well, causing oozing lesions on my neck, two so far. I have a tracheostomy tube in to keep my airway from being crushed, and it's permanent. My face now looks like I have the mumps on the left side. The skin cancer is also closing off my left ear canal. First I couldn't get the hearing aid in it, now I'm not sure a toothpick would fit. Not going to try, it's painful to touch it.

What the cancer has taken from me so far: My ability to speak, to eat, to swallow. My hearing in my left ear. Wearing earrings - hurts too much to put the left one in. Earrings have been something I've worn daily since I got them pierced at age 15. They were my trademark. I can't turn my head or nod more than a tiny inch or so. My left shoulder and arm hurt from my neck to my elbow, and it's hard to use that arm. To reach up I have to push it with my right arm. I can't find a comfortable position for my left arm sitting down.

I'm anchored to the pain meds, the canned formula food, and the suction device which my friend Diane has termed the Suctionator. Travel? Hah. Doing a little shopping or going to church requires enough equipment for a sherpa.  My bucket list used to have things like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Florida on it. Can't do that. Now it has things like getting my house painted in the colors I wanted, getting the clutter cleared out, getting another novel or two finished, and petting kittens.

I have one book I know I can finish if I can get it through the writing group. That will put my output up to nine. I probably can't write another. This makes me so sad. I had a couple dozen books I wanted to write, and they would have been good stories. No one can write them the way I would have, though I have a young friend, age 13, who has decided she wants to study my style and write them. I'll leave her copious notes, but it won't be the same. Still, inspiring a young writer who may be so much greater than I've been would be a good legacy.

Regrets? I have too many. I wish I wasn't so damned introverted. I wish I hadn't been such a TV addict. I wish I traveled better - I got sick on every single vacation I ever took. So now, in what should have been a nice quiet retirement, I get sick again. Permanently. Figures.

Well, hell. I'm not dead yet. So much to do and so little time. But I'm still here, and I'm still me.

It's terminal.

Where to start? Monday, I guess. Got the results of the biopsy and it was the news no one wants to hear. The pain in my neck and shoulder wasn't stiff muscles, nor yet scar tissue hardened by radiation. My cancer has metastasized and is spreading into other organs. Muscles and skin so far. The bump that was biopsied is skin cancer. Chemo can slow it down but nothing can cure it now. The doctor hesitantly estimated I have just months to live.

To say this news is devastating is an understatement. I'm so overwhelmed I don't know what I feel exactly. Grief, rage, terror - I think those are foremost. Grief that I'll never do all the things I was planning to do in retirement. Rage that I had no risk factors for this type of cancer. Terror - well, in spite of being a Christian, in spite of being sure there is a God and an afterlife, there's enough doubt around the edges to be scary. Plus, no one knows for sure what form the afterlife takes. What if I have to pay up for all the crap I've done wrong? What if deep down, I'm not a good person?

What hurts the most is all the stories I'll never write. So many of them. I know I'm not a great writer. I may not even be a good writer - couldn't sell any to a publisher, which is why I self-published. I have read novels that did get published traditionally that I know are written much more poorly than mine. I won't name any, because since some of them were best sellers I know a lot of people would disagree with me, and I don't want to get into a literary argument just now.

Hopefully I'll reunite with the people I love in the afterlife. I have missed them sorely.