what do you do?

What do you do when the road that is already paved

is not one you are liking?

The road that is paved is scary?

The road that is paved is the one most are likely to take.

What do you do?

Why you make a new path, you pave a new road.

That is what I am going to do.

Making a road less traveled.

Okay, where am I going with this?

Remember a few days ago I said I would explain this

journey, well here it is.

Sit back, it'll be a long one.

Skip over if you would like.

Coming back from Tennessee I am not liking what

is laid out in front of me but I am resigning.

Resigning to the fact that I will have to follow

this regimen that others before me, the experts have laid out.

I call Thibodaux Cancer Center to find out which counselors

they recommend. I get the phone number of

the social worker there, Gretchen.

She listens to me and says she really would like to meet

me tomorrow instead of talking on the phone.

I go in the very next day and she says.

"Okay, tell me why you feel you have survivorship issues."

I go into detail, spill it all out.

She listens patiently and when I am done she says,

"You are a survivor of cancer, but you do not have survivorship issues."

She goes on to explain exactly what that is.

She asks me why I went to Tennessee and I tell her for answers.

She asks did I get those answers and I say yes.

She tells me then to stop searching and grasping at straws.

No matter how I got where I am is not important.

It is what it is and I can't go back and change that.

I have chronic pain and will probably have it for the rest of my life

but to continue to search for answers and cures just

won't change what is.

She says however that I can have a good life and stop

letting this issue control me.

She then asks me what is really bugging me and I tell her.

"I am angry, no I am pissed"

This is not what I signed up for, it's not what my family signed up for.

I am angry that I have allowed this thing to take control of

my life. I am angry that I have to rely on medications

to have any sort of quality of life.

She agrees, yes, that is it, I am angry.

Much conversation takes place between her and I in that

hour we spent together but I come to these conclusions.

I do not have to sit back and take this.

I can be the leader in a new path.

Maybe others after me will realize that they have other choices

than what doctors lay out there for them.

Gretchen tells me about the spine center of excellence

right her in Thibodaux and their holistic approach

to medical care. They treat the whole body not just one

problem. I now feel though that I can do this.

I can make this anything I want,

I can be the martyr, carry the cross

or I can learn to live another way,

pave a path. No more pity parties for me.

I will be well, I may have pain but it will no longer control me.

I leave there and go to the library to find something to read.

Right there in the New books section what do I find?

TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR CHRONIC PAIN

PETER ABACI, MD

I take it home and read it in one day.

It has everything in this book that I have been feeling.

All my fears of medications and doctors all printed in this book.

Other alternatives besides what has been spelled out for me is here.

I sometimes wonder if I speak too much on this blog.

Then I remember that what I post here may be nothing

for the ones reading now.

However it will be here long after me, many may see

my writings, maybe it will be one of my own

great, great grandchildren and they will read

something here that will change their life.

The journey begins with one step.

I have began paving the new road

in hopes that if others find themselves in my shoes they

will have more than one road to choose to follow.