Most of you know I was diagnosed with cancer in 1999. There's no rational explanation for why I've survived -- I smoke, I eat crap, I bitch and piss and moan and I'm generally outspoken and far from mellow. I believe with one other exception, everyone in my original support group is dead. Frequently I'm told how fortunate I am, how wonderful it is that I'm alive. I don't exactly have survivor's guilt but I do take spells where I feel like I'm a walking time bomb.

I didn't get my mammogram last summer when it was due. I simply didn't feel like it. Every time I have one, they find some new growth and then poke and prod around on me, trying to aspirate or else hack on my breasts. During that time, I'm hypersensitive and in survivor mode -- my children are worried and my husband melts down. Sorry, I wish I could say we're well-adjusted, calm folks but we ain't.

But most of the time the past year or so, I don't think much about my cancer. I know the tumor markers continue to creep upward infintestimally but for the most part, it's deemed to be stable. I take my Arimidex pill every day (when I remember my medication -- that's a whole 'nother story) and I live my life.

I sensed a domino effect beginning in October. I made a doctor's appointment to see my alternative health doctor, the one who managed everything but the actual Western cancer treatment. I was shocked I couldn't get an appointment until December 22nd. I received a letter in the mail December 15th that his office was no longer accepting Medicaid and I needed to find another doctor. Woohoo. I have such a complicated medical history -- it's nearly inconceivable all the conditions I'm living with. Not just any greenhorn fresh out of school can balance all my medications and diseases. This is a proven fact, several times over. Okay, it takes a well-weathered doc to coordinate my care. Then there's my personality. I ain't the easiest patient in the world. I'm a nurse. I'm opinionated. I'm also fairly well-informed. I refuse to be patronized.

So I'm in a pickle, to put it mildly. I need an excellent doctor who is secure enough to weather my personality AND who takes Medicaid. So far, nada. Nothin'. So I sense another domino quivering.

I have my down-to-every-six-months cancer check due on Thursday. My oncologist (cancer doc) is a gem of a human being -- such a nice sweet intelligent and funny man, he's a real mensch. I love him! He is senstive -- the last time he saw me -- early August -- he took one look at me and hospitalized me on the spot. Turned out my blood pressure was sky high (220/190) and I was in atrial fibrillation (my heart was quivering instead of pumping). He's a good guy, a wonderful spirit, and a terrific doctor. He won't yell at me on Thursday when I tell him I haven't gotten my mammogram, but I hope I can squeeze it in between now and then.

But I have a bad feeling about this upcoming check-up. I'm scared. I haven't been scared for awhile but I tend to feel afraid when it's time for another check. See, I lived my life blithely before my diagnosis. I'd done everything I was supposed to do -- got my baseline checked, etc. Everything was copesthetic until I took my sister in for her first mammogram and they offered me a free one. I wasn't one to turn down a free mammogram. Damned if it didn't show cancer -- Stage IV -- had spread, etc., and worst of all it showed on the previous mammogram and was missed seven years ago.

That event knocked the false sense of security I'd lived with right out from under me. I wasn't safe any more. I couldn't trust readings of x-rays. Long story short, I was plunged into a depression that lasted nearly five years. I haven't been out long at all. And now I'm afraid again.

My liver's twice as big as it's supposed to be -- I look like I'm 20 months' pregnant. This is a side effect of the chemotherapy. I have cirrhosis. Believe it or not, I don't drink. Oh, I have a glass of wine once a week or so nowadays, but I hadn't had a drink in over 20 years (and didn't drink a lot before then) when I was diagnosed with cirrhosis. Turns out it's congenital in my case. Ain't life grand? The genetic predisposition I was born with was triggered into action by the chemotherapy.

Well, I'm babbling on. The bottom line is, I have this sense of foreboding. I've had oodles of pieces published over the past three months. My writing's taking off. Things are too good. The living room's straight. The dishes are washed. The laundry's caught up. I've invoked the wrath of the Cancer Gods.

So I try to distract myself -- I wander around online reading the odd piece here and there. And this pops up -- in Writer's Market, of all places:

BBC journalist loses cancer battle

37-year-old BBC journalist Ivan Noble died on Monday [last Monday]. Noble had been posting accounts of his treatment online since he was diagnosed 2 1/2 years ago, and posted his last entry on January 30th. Source: journalism.co.uk

So I vist his blog: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4211475.stm

...and I cry.