@bdpp- Oh my word life just doesn't give us what we expect or want a lot of the time. I'm a lung cancer survivor of 22+ years and every time I get another lesion I feel this way too. PTSD is so different for everyone. I'll attach my blog post about mine. PTSD is a lot of depression and anger. I'm so so happy that your PET scan came back clean and that you want to get going. Your anger and tears might just be a delayed reaction to your last cancer. I've had 2 surgeries and after the last one I became more and more depressed and eventually house bound from depression. So go get on the road and have fun now, style your new hair in a spunky style and go for it! I firmly believe that being active can be more beneficial than anything. So when do you hit the road?
https://my20yearscancer.com/ptsd-lung-cancer/
https://my20yearscancer.com/climbing-out-of-post-traumatic-stress-disorder/

Hi @bdpp I an so sorry to read of your health situation. It's never easy to travel these journeys in life that's for sure. When anyone of us is diagnosed with cancer our lives change and they change without any consideration for what we had been planning for, or hoping for, in our future. It certainly was the case when my wife was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49. Cancer, like all of life, is simply not fair.

It was good to read you have so many positive things in your life. A wonderful partner, good insurance, the financial security to be able to afford COBRA, which can be a brute for sure, and a community of supportive friends. While it is not easy, sometimes we need to force ourselves to look at those good things in life versus the bad or those things we have lost. As I said, easy to say, but never an easy task.

During the very worst of the months of my wife's disease we came to relish the fact, when we woke up, that we simply had another day together. That was our greatest gift and we trained ourselves to not look past that.

Wishing you continued strength, courage, and peace.

@bdpp Life has this sneaky way of making us sit up and take notice of things. As we merrily go along, planning things out, it has other ideas and often throws a wrench into the wheel. In 1988 I received my first life-altering diagnosis, and here I am 30+ years later, still here. I refused to let it kick me in the teeth, let it have the upper hand. And that is how I dealt with with subsequent health situations in 1997, 2004, 2005, 2015, 2017. I grieved for the things I realistically knew would not be possible, then created a work-around. A new reality, a new look at options. I hope you can reread your post and see the positives you spoke of, how the gratitude for those things shine!
Ginger