It's a shame that so many people on here are judging you for wanting tattoos and plastic surgery. Who cares? Neither of those things are for me, but if that's what you want, go for it. Everything we do in life is selfish, let's face it, we're programmed to survive. If you do it and realize you wish you hadn't, just add that to your list of life experiences. You sound intelligent enough to be able to talk to your loved ones about the new adventures you want to integrate into your life. They may want to protect you, but in the end, they will be happy that you took a chance. I moved to London when I was 21 on a whim. My dad tried to dissuade me; I am the youngest of 6 kids and he raised me when my mom left, so he's always been very protective. My spontaneous adventure actually inspired my dad to take a trip to Scotland (he thought we were Scottish until we recently learned we're Welsh...ha ha!). Who knows? Maybe you will shake things up?...in a good way :-)

As a fellow dweller of that place you describe, having been told to "enjoy the time I had left" and then unexpectedly granted a reprieve, I find I must disagree with your assessment that going back to one's "routine life" is a mirage. It depends on the choices you've made before your brush with death. It may turn out that facing the end has put in perspective for you that you were indeed living the life you wanted, that the comfort and routine of your life is in fact what you chose and IS your life. Perhaps the sudden urge to run off to islands and sky-dive is the mirage. Those things will not make your life deeper; they will not satisfy those needs to really "live." It might be simply a distraction from the fact of death, from the real choices you must now make in your life. Those around you will regret that you didn't do the things you wanted to do and say before you died--because they are part of that. Becoming something other than yourself is not the answer. If immediate and manic energy was what constituted "really living," we'd all know exactly what to do to satisfy our need for a deeper life. It seems that kind of urgent change is itself the running away.

Thanks for your thoughtful column,

nostromo9

The LW says her cancer will probably come back. Perhaps her new-found enthusiasm for life is in some sense the denial stage of dealing with that? I'm reminded of my father, in the two years between his first heart attack and his death from the next one (which his doctor had told him would probably happen). Driving too fast, one-handed, with the other hand out the window. Mr Never-had-an-accident-and-not-going-to was suddenly behaving like a teenager. My first clue that his prognosis was bad (which I proceeded to deny to myself).

However, my advice to the LW - go for it! Send the family lots of postcards from wherever the adventure takes you. I did like the letter from the poster (one of the starred posts) that tried to explain their fear. Assuage. Reassure. Drag them along!

Jesus people, stop coddling this person. Sorry, but we all have come close to death many times. In the old days, people were lucky just to make it out of the birth canal alive. After that, most of us are lucky to get through childhood in one piece and without serious psychological problems.

Then there's the American road, with all its drunk drivers and other idiots. I have narrowly escaped death countless times. One time a drunk driver was speeding the wrong way down the freeway and I swerved just in time not to have a head-on collision with the bastard. (This is why I hate, hate, hate drunk drivers and have no sympathy for them when they lose their licenses, large chunks of money, or end up in jail.)

We are all going to die. Tall or large men are prone to heart disease due to the higher demand for pumping blood through a larger area. All men are guaranteed to get prostate cancer if they don't die some other way. Women are at risk of breast and ovarian cancer among other things. Then there's colon and bowel cancer, skin cancer, lung cancer, brain tumors...

What the LW needs to realize is that she's been through a trauma. She needs a support group, not some tattoos. She needs to stop pretending that she's part of some new "seen the light" club, because she isn't. She is reassessing her life, and that's great, but what was stopping you from reassessing your life to begin with? You don't have to plunge head-first into a radical makeover just because you braved the thrills and chills of a hospital and a bad diagnosis. You should be reassessing your life anyway (people customarily wait until mid-life, so you have a head start on the majority).

Speaking of plunging head-first into a makeover, it sounds like the LW wants to dive into the shallow end. Bad idea. I am not being a "prude" when I tell you that if you weren't interested in a tattoo before, there's no reason a cancer sitaution should make you interested in one now. Tattoos are trendy as fuck. Life-changing experiences are supposed to make you a deeper, more philosophical person, not a trend-folllower. But hey, if you want to pay some amateur artist to permananently doodle some lame-ass dragon crap on your body, that is chosen out of a Staples notebook catalog along with all the other thousands of trendy followers who also choose mediocre designs out of the same cheap Staples notebook, then nobody can stop you. You don't need Cary Tennis or a bunch of faceless typed words on the internet to tell you it's okay to self-mutilate your flesh with tacky and meaningless epidermal graffiti. Knock yourself out!

Same with boob implants, or whatever Michael Jackson nosejob surgery you are considering. Don't let Cary Tennis tell you that it's okay to have your natural breasts sliced open so some Hippocratic Oath-violating exploitative surgeon can shove plastic grapefruits into your torso region, just so you can feel better about your fake appearance of overdeveloped fertility so that you'll be awash in the misguided sense of heightened self-value in the eyes of adolescence-stuck males. By all means, blow your savings account on some DuPont ball of jelly that was probably specially formed in the hands of a Chinese factory worker before being delivered in a cardboard box to the expensive store-room of the greedy surgeon who is licking his chops to take your money and cut you open. Why don't you get your body laminated while you're at it?

Sorry, but here's the deal: Plain, unadorned flesh is HOT. All-natural, unchanged breasts are SEXY. Petite breasts are just as sexy as big breasts. Trust me, I've done the research. A tattoo on your skin looks like a gross fucking bruise. Whether it's on your back, navel, arm or butt, it's cute for about 10 seconds before the realization sets in that you're a trendy-ass follower. If you really want to adorn your skin, do it with henna. If you really want to express yourself through body art, then dress up, go to Mardi Gras, put glitter on your eyelids, wear cool earrings, or work out and get firm thighs and hot arm muscles like Linda Hamilton in "Terminator 2." Do the world a favor and don't leap into the dogpile of the teeming masses who all have done the exact same idiotic thing in the name of expressing their individuality. Please, give it some thought.

As for everything else in your life, go for it! Follow your bliss. Which is what you should have done all along anyway. Don't hurt people along the way. Don't use peole as rungs. Be ethical. Then have fun. Nobody is stopping you. Nobody was ever stopping you, and if they were, then you owed it to yourself then and you owe it to yourself now to stop letting them.

Watch the movie "Fearless" sometime, it's kinda dumb but you might find it interesting. It's about a guy who survives a plane crash and then suddenly thinks he's invincible and can help other people get over their problems too. He's allergic to strawberries, but then he eats a strawberry, and oh man, you'll just have to watch the movie to find out what happens regarding that strawberry. Best strawberry in a movie since...."9 1/2 Weeks."