Survivor

Survivor
sur·vi·vor (plural sur·vi·vors) 
1.  somebody who survives: somebody who remains alive despite being exposed to life-threatening danger. 

What does survivor mean to you?  Survivor means that someone/something tried to afflict your being.  You fought with everything that you had to make sure that you survived.  It could be a creep in an alley way.  It could be silent: a lump, a bump, a pain or a even a little mole. Put Cancer into the picture and ‘survivor’ takes on a whole new meaning, doesn't it? “I’m a survivor”: Someone that has had chemo…someone that has had radiation…someone that has been bald…someone that has had REAL Cancer treatment.

The ultimate Survivor to me is my dad.  Dad, I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t ask you about writing this…but I hope you’ll get a smile from this. You looked death in the eyes, spat on it’s shoes and told it’s dumb ass to kick gravel and travel.  Death shivered in your presence. You are SO strong.  I think it’s amazing.

Personally, I’ve had a hard time with this ‘word’: survivor.  To me, I will not classify myself as a “survivor”.  My opinion is that I don’t deserve it.  Yes, I chose to wait for a year with ‘life-threatening danger’ growing on my back before I chose to see a dermatologist…who I am now happily calling “my dermatologist”.  He’s a nice, older gentleman that could totally be my dad’s age.  It’s a bit awkward during our 3 month visit; I’ve seen him seriously every single month since I’ve been out of work, if not twice a month in some cases, so we‘ve bonded a little bit.  The thing that makes me like him is he’ll walk into the office and say “So…did we fix you?”

Anywho - this is to all us ‘survivors’ and ‘non-survivors’ alike.  Regardless if you’ve gone through it yourself or if someone in your family has, I suppose we are all survivors in some sense of the word.  We survive the situation. We survive the thoughts. We survive the pain. We survive the sadness. We survive the day to day.

I guess we are all survivors.