Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Is Cancer a Battle?


I have a different point of view on this whole idea of cancer being a battle. Although, I sometimes think of Zena, Warrior Princess, as my hero. Cancer encourages us to muster all of our strength to meet its challenges, but I still don't think of it as a battle. My 15-year journey with cancer has presented me with many challenging opportunities to examine my thoughts and feelings, to change my priorities, to learn more about love and to realize more of who I really am. Without cancer, these changes probably would not have happened and I would have died long ago according to my oncologist's prediction in 2001. I consider it to be a gift, never a battle (unless it was with myself or my medical team). One of my first lessons was that it's not about WHAT happens to you, it's all about how you CHOOSE to deal with it. Tremendous healings can occur in the emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of a person's life - and those are the aspects that matter the most. When someone dies of cancer, I would much rather hear something like "they faced their challenge and became a much better, happier person because of it and they died in peace." (rather than they lost their battle, poor loser). Death is something we all experience sooner or later - cancer can give us the unique opportunity [time] to really think about how we want to live the remaining, very-precious moments of our lives, and how we would like them to end.

Perhaps I need to clarify that my feelings about cancer being a gift are NOT that it was a welcome gift, but that it has inspired me to make great changes in my life - changes that have made me a much better person. It's not fun and it doesn't feel good and it's very frightening and can be earth-shattering. I would not wish it on anyone. I have worked very hard to choose this point of view and it feels right to me. I try to "look for the gift" in every unpleasant situation. It often requires a great deal of time, soul-searching and prayer for me to discover the gift when the situation is 'bad news' from my oncologist. Then, I resolve to move on with my life, forever changed because of the gift I have found. I am filled with gratitude for every day that I am enjoying the gift of life and the miracles of modern medical technology and prayers and, most especially, LOVE.  

2 comments:

  1. You have always been a wonderful person in my experience. I am happy that you see, feel and love yourself as others do more than ever before.
    Love,
    Jo

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  2. I am working on that, getting better every day. thankyou.

    ReplyDelete