Marsha,  I know what you mean about being glad to have cancer.  Hubby Dan has two children from a previous marriage:  Kathy is the daughter and is now 35, married, and working as a police dispatcher for on of our cities here.  Mike was 16 when I married Dan, and could never be more than just barely polite to me.  I understood that he had his own problems and really wanted Dan to get back with his ex.  Now that was not a possibility.  When I went in for my bilateral mastectomy, Dan and I were waiting in the pre-op area until they took me in.  We heard this angy voice arguing with a charge nurse, finally saying, "Because she's my MOM and she's going to be operated on."  Dan went out and Mike came in.  His was the last face I saw before I went to surgery and the first I saw when I woke up.  He's now approaching his 40th birthday, is divorced with two delightful pre-teen daughters and engaged to a lovely woman.  And I am now his mom.  (I'll never forget coming out after a liver biopsy and practically collapsing into Dan's arms, tears and the whole nine yards because I was awake for the biopsy and they struck a never when they put the catheter in for the needle.  I have never ever had that much pain.  Mike was headed back in to the theater where they did the procedure.  "They didn't have to hurt you that bad, etc. I want to see him!) 
 
It's amazing how a near-death experience brings family and friends together.  I saw that again this February when I had congestive heart and just about every other organ failure.  I was in a come for four weeks, and when I woke up at UCLA cardiac evaluation center, Kathy was with her dad and me, and Michael had come up to take the RV home when Dan found a hotel closer to the hospital.  And of course, they have all been around during my continuing recovery. 
 
Three years is a good long time to be cancer-free.  I remember each of those checks, and at three years I was still at every three months.  At five years they let me go six months between.  And at six years, I said no more tamoxifen, and only annual checkups unless I was symptomatic.  Now, I don't even see the oconogist!  But, I get to see my cardiolist and have regulare echocardiograms.  I guess it never ends until it really ends.
 
Marla

Marla B. Pence
 
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming --- Wow! What a ride!!!!!
 

May you soar with eagles

Run with the wolves

Walk with the buffalo

And always be my friend