I better understand my anxiety about starting treatment again; it isn't the treatment itself, or the side-effects, rather, it makes this (the relapse) real.
That leads to the 800 pound gorilla.
This isn’t blood work or a biopsy, it's a treatment and it may not be successful.
Then we start again, with the ever present 800 lb. gorilla in the room. What if none of the treatments work? What if I don't go into remission again? What if death is “the next thing”?
I'm not being negative; in fact, I've probably been too cavalier about this relapse and the prognosis for achieving a second remission. But there are no guarantees, and that's true for all of us, today, tomorrow and every day.
So I've been anxious over the last week, but the day has arrived, I will storm the gates and take my medicine (literally & figuratively) and deal with the "next thing" when I arrive at that intersection.
