Breast Cancer and Personal Growth

Of course having cancer stinks. It is undeniably the worst thing that has ever happened to me in a long life of really hard knocks. When I found out, in the doctor’s office, my life was already so lousy that I did not even react. Actually, what I said to him was: “Oh. Okay. So, uh, I guess you’ll get in touch with me, to let me know about surgery and stuff?” I was dead calm. With my Mom dying in another hospital and my husband out of work, my having cancer seemed like the next logical thing to happen to me.

I’m going to talk more about my situation in another chapter. For now, I just want to share with you what I was able to write in my diary one month after the diagnosis, post-surgery and pre-chemo. I was already riding the roller coaster of emotion, swinging from brave to hysterical with fear and back again.

When I first began this journey, I was sometimes told that I was negative. A sufferer of major clinical depression since puberty, I had even considered suicide more than once. And yet, as the first months with cancer unfolded, I found myself fired up with the determination to live. My husband needed me desperately. In addition to being husband and wife, we are also each other’s closest friend. For his sake, and for my own, I decided that I was going to make it through the gauntlet. I managed to stay positive, right up until the week after my last chemo, when depression struck again.

But all of that is another story. The fact is, I wrote the following words in my diary, and I stand by them to this day:

1. Having cancer will teach me how to eat right. Eating right may save me from the very real genetic risk of heart disease.
2. Having cancer will teach me the necessity of exercise. I could come out of this and spend the rest of my life keeping fit and active.
3. Having cancer is teaching me how much my husband loves me.
4. Having cancer makes me reach out and share myself. I am making new friends.
5. Having cancer makes me appreciate a day without pain.
6. Having cancer means I am learning not to let things that do not matter ruin my day.
7. Having cancer teaches me to look on the suffering of my fellow humans with more compassion.
8. Having cancer has put me in touch with my mortality, and the closer I come to conquering the fear of my mortality, the better I can appreciate the beauty of life.
9. Having cancer may help me to finally overcome my procrastinating ways.
10. Having cancer will encourage me to learn many new ways - like visualization and meditation - to eliminate and avoid stress, which will in turn help me to live a more peaceful and satisfying life.

The battle is daily. And it’s not just a fight against the insanity of having cancer.
It’s about changing my life, food, exercise, work. Stress, fear, anxiety. Being positive. Crying. Having hope. Being unbearably sad.
Hoping to live, hoping to grow, and to become more fully alive.
Fear of becoming weak, incapacitated, less than I am. Fear of losing everything. Fear of how others see me.
Coming to know myself. Praying for strength.
Want to live. Wanting to have the strength not to give up.

I learned a lot from having cancer. No cloud without a silver lining, I guess.

Legal Stuff

Resources

I have been so grateful to have had access to web-based support groups and to breast cancer information. Here's a list of Web Resources that helped me. If you know of other good ones, please e-mail me and I will add them to the list.

Wonderful Books

Here's a short list of books that I found helpful after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. As soon as I can I'll add to the list and I'll post some reviews, as well.

Walk-a-thon 2007

Every year, the Weekend to End Breast Cancer http://www.endcancer.ca raises tens of millions of dollars for breast cancer research, in several major cities across the country. Within each participating city, a carefully selected hospital receives valuable funding for research and facilities. Each Walker raises a minimum of $2000 for the privilege of walking 60 kilometres over a two-day weekend. Thousands of volunteers across the country donate their time, not only on the days of the event, but also on days training for their part in it. I made this Walk in 2005, not even a year after my treatment, volunteered in 2006 and have done so again for 2007.

I strongly urge you to become involved with this event or others like it. They are enormously uplifting, and you will come away with great memories etched into your heart. With each donation from my sponsors, I wondered if this could be the money that would fund a cure, because I do believe that we will find a cure.