The Wicked Witch and the Hourglass

There has been a lot going on lately. In my personal life, there have been a lot of family events. My youngest daughter came to visit with her family, my niece was married (for the first and hopefully the last time) and my oldest daughter had a daughter – her second. As a result, there has been a lot of time spent with family and it has been great.

In Cancer World, a lot has been going on, too. There has been some good news, people responding to treatment and having the last of their surgeries – excited to get their lives back to normal. But there have also been a fair amount of bad news. People, diagnosed around the same time as me, are not fairing so well. Some have been doing really well when one regular trip to the oncologist or quarterly scan shows that the cancer is back on the march. One person is now on hospice. It makes me wonder how much time do I have left? I was pondering this when a scene from The Wizard of Oz popped into my head. You know, the one where Dorothy has been captured by the Wicked Witch of the West who, because she can’t get her hands on those coveted ruby slippers, grabs a huge hourglass with ominous, blood-red sand, flips it over and pronounces, “This is how long you have to live!” Dorothy, much to the relief of anxious children watching, is eventually rescued by her friends.  

Like Dorothy, I feel like I’m living with one eye glued to my own hourglass – only I can’t see how much sand I have left. And there is no foreseeable rescue.  Cancer has become my own personal wicked witch and although I can keep her at bay for a while, the blood-red sand continues to pour…

                                         Drawing courtesy of Daughter Amy