This post was NOT written by me. A fellow cancer survivor, Micks Journey, posted this and it was if he read my mind. I wish I had his writing skills to articulate into words what I am feeling. The following did it for me. I did adapt a few sentences for me, but overall - Thanks Mick!!
As someone who has been through the wringer with cancer, I possess a drive and a sense of urgency to accomplish the things I want to accomplish. I know the value of my health, the importance of my time and how precious each breath is. I no longer take for granted the days I feel healthy and strong because I have experienced what it feels like to have my body disobey and my mind pushed beyond discomfort.
After treatment there is this huge rush to get back as though nothing happened. A mistake people make is that some seem to think cancer is forgettable. Cancer is a part of me now. It is a part of anyone who has experienced it. We cancer veterans live daily with our cancer – in the scars on our bodies, the memories of the people who were kind when we needed help, and the way that we can never again take tomorrow for granted. I am not my old pre-cancer self. I’m someone different and that is both scary and exciting at the same time.
Cancer is a bully. If I cower in the corner, I help it win. But if I tell the proper authorities (my doctors), stand up to it, laugh at it, and use weapons like healthy foods and positive affirmations, I swing the odds in my favor. I will always continue to fight, continue to laugh, and continue to experience life. Without cancer and all its lessons, I would have merely lived. Now I thrive.
As a cancer survivor, I can’t ever have too many people surrounding me with encouragement on my journey. My family, my children, my grandson, bring me joy, hope and the strength to forge on. My facebook family, my facebook friends, my "cancer" friends that I've made along the way help enforce the encouragement I need EVERY DAY.
Cancer has placed limitations on what I could do for a long time, but I didn’t let that stop me from forging a new path for my life. Let yourself be open to new things! Try things you have never thought about doing before. Enjoy them!! And enjoy yourself!
Yes, my life has been forever changed and yes, my life has turned upside. But even during this unplanned tumultuous part of my life, I deserved – no, I NEEDED to make plans. Maintaining my will to live and to put one foot in front of the other is, in my opinion, just as important as what medical science can do for me. Both must work hand in hand.
I don’t believe there are any one-sided lessons in life. Just as a broken bone heals stronger at the point of fracture, every defeat allows me go grow. I believe that each time my cancer knocks me back a step, the reverence that I have for life and its endless lessons grows stronger.
It is having faith in myself that helps me overcome obstacles in life, including cancer. When a thunderstorm rolls in, I just need to remind myself that there’s a sun behind those clouds. It will shine again – maybe not today or tomorrow – but it will shine again.
One thing I have been asked about a lot is how can I find the humor in such a shitty situation, and in many ways I still don’t know how to answer that question. I just find things to be funny. Not necessarily funny as in “ha ha” funny, but funny like bizarre (and yes, ok, some ha ha funny too). Cancer is random. It has a mind of its own. But cancer only controls me when I allow it to. It can’t take my spirit, my soul, my humor or my passions, unless I allow it to. So I dance (badly, I might add), I sing, I move, and I laugh in the face of cancer. I am very thankful for all the great things in my life, but sometimes life bites. When it does, I bite back.
The human spirit is precious and it deserves nourishment. Life can get back to better than normal. A new normal.
Remember this – whenever you face a challenge, any challenge, you always have a choice to view the challenge as an ending or as a new beginning.
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