MY LIFE THE WAY IT NEVER WAS BEFORE

Here are a few thoughts that have helped me deal with cancer. My way may seem oblique, even flippant, to some - but it has given me my life in a way I've never had it before: Sharon
The first time I was diagnosed with cancer, I looked closely at my life and realized I was already dead and just hadn't laid down yet:

In the name of practicality, I had given up my dreams; In the name of maturity, I was settling for a very unsatisfactory life; in the name of understanding, I was permitting myself to be addressed with disrespect (even those little teasing jokes can hurt you).

I had a wonderful oncologist who told me, "I can do surgery and I can do medicine, but I can't save your life. You have to make your life so full of wonderful things that you just don't have time to die. You have to chase away the fear and embrace the joy so that your immune system can fight this thing."

After that, I always said that cancer gave me my life back.

When I got a second round nine years later, it was scarier: the word "mestastatic" has become almost a synonym for fatal, at least the way we are taught to think of it by traditional medicine.

However, at the same time I was diagnosed with the recurrence, a few dozen cars drove into a thick fog band on Interstate 5 and several of them didn't come out alive. On their way to work, to visit, to shop, whatever - bang! It was done. Those who died had no chance to fear death, to put their "affairs in order," to say goodbye, to take that last trip to Yosemite, to find friends on the internet, to learn to paint, to buy a guitar after all these years, to discover their purpose, to find right work, to - anything, ever again.

Me? I'm on notice about my mortality. It's true that anyone can die any time (like a truck could run them over), but that doesn't seem to influence how we think or how we live, for the greater part of our lives. We think there will be time later for the important stuff but there is no "later" that anyone can really rely on.

That bad joke says, "no one gets out of here alive."

But those of us who have cancer know that better than anyone. It's not just a theoretical someday thing - it's a here-now reality we live with. Whether we have three months, three years or 40 years, we honor those who have gone before (whether through cancer or through fog banks) by living and loving 100 per cent. Anything less is pretense and there's no time for that, really, for anyone with or without cancer.

Unlike many (not all) so-called "healthy people" we can open our hearts and our conversations to strangers, originating our conversations in a deep-seated love and understanding that comes from facing life's frailties and looking death in the eye: that really gives a person a great perspective. It's our relationship with cancer that has made a forum like this possible. We know ego and pretense are a waste of everyone's precious time.

So we have the advantage: we truly have an opportunity to be alive. Like other people we have long term dreams, but we also have short term demands on the quality of our days. This same demand for quality of living in the present is the strongest ammunition we can give to our most powerful ally - our immune systems.

So when I know someone who has died from cancer, I say to myself, "there's someone who has truly lived." And when I know someone who has had cancer and lived, I say "that's how I'd like to do it, it I can."

PEACE LIKE A RIVER.---SHARON

THE IMPACT !

What I need to say, and am sure my brother agrees, is that although there is not always a face, we have been blessed with enough Guardian angels, and knowing you has made our journey bearable. Your presence in our life has enriched our spiritual growth. Your miracles gave us the hope and strength to motivate our sometimes depressed spirits, and carry on. We have been blessed with first hand knowledge, that kindness ito man kind is strong and growing. That someone we will never meet face to face can impact another's, our, lives so richly. Joann

Humor Of An Ignoring Nurse!

Since I Ignored The Signs Of Cancer amd being a nurse to boot. I now have carry around my diapers amd my creams in a large back pack. This has become part of my identity. I get comments at work, like "ARE YOU MOVING IN?'. Working in a Nursing Home, that day will come; but not for awhile. The residents love me because I can relate to how it feels when one messes themselves. I did get revenge during flu season! My button briefs went like hot cakes. Even someone in administration had to beg me for some. At Church people don't have to look for me, they look for the big black pack. How does one remain sexy with a diaper on??? There is humor in everything. I am alive! I have become a fashion statement! Gladly I do not have to wear the full briefs, horrows, then I would CRINKLE WHEN I SAT DOWN and that would give me away. GOD BLESS NANCY S. ROBISON LPN

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