Baldies' Blog began originally in the UK by a 26 year old journalist with a blood cancer on a mission to inform the world about bone marrow donation.

He has since died, and I took on the cause of making cancer care more transparent for everybody.

Cancer is a disease that will touch everybody through diagnosis or affiliation: 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed and 1 in 3 woman will hear those words, "You Have Cancer."

I invite you to read how I feel along my journey and
how I am continuing to live a full life alongside my Hodgkin's lymphoma, with me controlling my cancer, not my cancer controlling me.

I hope that "Baldies' Blog" will prepare you to handle whatever life sends you, but especially if it's the message, "You Have Cancer."

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Sunday, August 16, 2009

Happy 27th to me!





Today is my birthday.
I hit twenty-seven.
And it feels GOOOOOOD.
I have kept thinking of ways to start this post or angles to make it more amusing and somehow explain why each birthday of mine is a milestone, even the seemingly insignificant ones, like 27.
It is certainly not the same feeling as turning thirteen when I was giddy and getting dressed up for cake and presents from my friends. 
The birthday excitement doesn't ring so much to that tune anymore, but there is definitely excitement.
I guess I would call the feeling accomplishment.
When I hit my 25TH birthday after a transplant that nearly took my life, I was celebrating like a rockstar.   
Okay, well, that's exaggerating, a rock star post cancer treatment.
When my doctor called that day I quickly joked that he was calling to wish me a happy birthday. 
He did, of course, help me reach a birthday I may not have. I have celebrated my birthday with my childhood primary care physician all my life because with out him, I wouldn't have had any at all. 
I get an urge with Dr. G and Anna to call them up screaming and celebrating everytime I hit a milestone.
 I don't know if other patients do this, but I am beginning to think I am a little out of the ordinary.
I want them to enjoy my successes as much as my setbacks. 
Dr. G didn't joke back that 25th birthday. The call was not to tell me go party and have a good time enjoy your refreshed cancer free life.
It was to tell me I had relapsed. My cancer returned. That was two years ago today. Every birthday since 24 I have reveled in just having it.
It is different celebrating when you truly believed at some point during the year that you may not age.  
I never moan because I am getting a year older. 
I have yet to freak out because I have met an age but not the goals I dreamed would come along with it.
  I hope I get to an age where I lie and say I am 29, because I have gone too far beyond thirty and would like to go back. 
As it is, I have been hanging on tooth and nail to get to each birthday since twenty-three.     
How do you live up to a celebration of that? How do you celebrate each birthday like it's an accomplishment of surviving. Or how do you celebrate each birthday wondering if its your last?
Who knows what a year can bring?
How about celebrating most days like their your last and not waiting.
I have just made life my one big celebration.
Yes, the best present I have been given through the years is time and the understanding to appreciate its value.
I try never to waste it. 
I give it to those I love and care about.
 I give my time to causes I love in hopes to leave this world better or make illness easier. 
Time is the greatest gift I have been given. 
I don't even need a birthday to celebrate it. 
But today j, x and I still are. We at breakfast by the beach and then played a family air hockey tournament. Ironically we're playing an air hockey game called "hot flash." 
I guess the whole world knows about my hotness problem and has decided to poke fun. Since I woke up this morning, I have just been one big flash.
It must be the "old age."
After this we went to one great condo for our swim gear and an afternoon of bodyboarding. 
I dare say, I couldn't imagine a beter way to spend my day (scratch that. I miss Heather and family, my twin sister, who would have been celebrating our birthday too had she not been in bed trying to prevent preston's birthday from coming).
I think a lot of us are finding enjoyment within the simple things life brings since the recession has taken away our ability to be distracted with wanton consumerism, but I am happy with time.
It's the best gift I have been given. It's free and it's from the heart.
I'll take it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday, Hillary, and many, many, many more. May you grow old enough to have to join the Red Hat Old Ladies Society!!

Carol

andyson said...

Happy Birthday!

- B

Daria said...

Happy Belated Birthday! Yes do celebrate life ...

Anonymous said...

You go girl!! Loved the pix ... & particularly liked the fact you are going for the gold. Time is the most important thing ... & using it wisely is a great decision.

Hope you are well ... & that you are finding your treatments tollerable.

Know that you are frequently on my mind.

F