"Good" cancer

Despite the pain I'm in right now, post-thyroidectemy and neck dissection, I am still having a hard time grasping that I have cancer. After seeing the struggle my Dad went through, the symptoms before his diagnosis and the side effects after, I feel like I'm cheating. I had no symptoms and my treatment should be pretty straight forward now that the big surgery is done. Surely having cancer is meant to be awful?

Don't get me wrong, I feel very lucky knowing that I won't go through what he did. But maybe that's why I'm having trouble with all of this. I feel lucky. I have cancer and I still feel lucky. Part of me wants to have the typical feelings of fear, anger, and sadness - and I do occasionally. But everything in life is relative and relative to what cancer has already taken from me, this doesn't seem like such a big deal.

If anything, I'm angry that cancer has already stripped me so bare that I can't even summon up the feelings I should have about my own diagnosis because I used them all up for Dad's.