Untie the Pink Ribbons

“Life is a gift.

We just have to remember

to untie the ribbons.”
 – Unknown

 

I was diagnosed on New Year’s Eve of 2001 with breast cancer.  I heralded in 2002 with trepidation, stark fear and a sickening feeling in my stomach as I faced the unknown future.  Due to that diagnosis, I have survived more than 10 surgeries with one more in the future.  I have endured 6 months of chemotherapy, 6 weeks of daily radiation, countless tests and visits to specialists, excruciating pain, sleepless nights, days when my brain just didn’t seem to work, losing my hair, my breasts, my confidence and my life as I knew it.  I have residual problems, testing every 6 months due to complications and I’m never quite far away from that original diagnosis although to meet me you may never know what I’ve endured.

But I’m still here, untying the gift of today…everyday.

It’s a choice my friends.  No matter what you are facing and believe me, I’ve faced so much in my life and not just cancer, it’s a choice to greet the dawn with enthusiasm, patience, love and kindness in your heart.  It’s a choice to think, “Oh God, it’s morning” and groan or to say it with enthusiasm for the gift of today that is yours.  After any illness, tragedy, or hard times, there’s a transitional period to find your new normal.  It will go a lot easier and faster for you if you lean into the idea that change is inevitable and it can be good.

Don’t mistake me, I can still get plenty mad about having breast cancer.  I can stomp my feet with the rest of the marchers and be angry that parts of my life have been taken from me.  I can look at my scarred body with hatred for what has occurred.  However, I choose to look at it with love for having endured so much pain and still be able to house my soul, my heart and my mind.  Sure, there are days when I lament the loss of my figure as it was before cancer and sure, I look at the scars and see the pain, the heartache and feel that I am not  beautiful.

But…I can also look and see how my body has healed herself with my help.  I see how my mind, body and spirit have connected, joined forces, so that the superficiality of life has fallen gently by the wayside and I am freed from conventionality.  I hold dear the knowledge that I find beauty in another soul’s eyes and spirit and pray that there are others out there who feel the same way.

We hold the power to untie those pink ribbons and find beauty, love, light and health in our own lives.  The diagnosis and subsequent treatments hold a turning point in my life.  I cannot say that I am happy I had this illness.  But I will say that I have grown in my own strength, love and health because of it.  I am a different person because I have endured so much and I am grateful for what I have learned about myself.  I found inner strength that I never knew I possessed.  I embrace my spirituality more tenderly than before and I hope that if you are on this journey of breast cancer, that you find peace, love, health and light within you to guide you as we find ourselves on this journey of light.

Shine On!

xo

How To Change Your Fate

“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.” – Amy Tan

So what do you believe?  Honestly now.  Do you believe that you can change your fate or do you believe that it is written in stone somewhere?  I’d love to hear what you think because I find it interesting.  I don’t even plan on stopping dreaming.  Even in my darkest days battling breast cancer, or dare I say my loneliest nights when the negatives beckoned to me, I held on tightly to the smallest shred of light.  Sure, I spent time pondering if it was my fate to die by cancer, but then I stopped wondering and started being proactive and shredding those negative feelings.  Fate could have me believe that it could kill me, but I had other plans.  I’m not being controversial by saying that by my will alone I am still here without re-occurrence for I have witnessed too many friends succumb to disease who fought hard and long for a cure to the ills which wracked their human body and many times their spirits.

I am grateful for this life I lead.  I never take it for granted even when I am flying high from being pronounced NED (no evidence of disease).  Nope, not me.  I just continue on my path, trying to do my best each and everyday.  And when I fall down and bump my spirit, I find courage again through my support system of kind souls who remind me that I am able to continue to take baby steps.  I believe.  I have faith.  I have hope.

I am blessed with hands to hold and hearts which hold mine tenderly. 

For you, I offer my hands and heart when you need a friend.

Reach out ~ there’s always a lifeline.

Shine On!

xo

Daily Prompt ~ Standing Out in Confusion

I admit, I am different.  There.  I said it.  Many times I feel like I’m out of place ~ and sometimes when I speak, my hubby has to translate what I’m saying.  It’s not that I’m speaking Spanish or any other language at the time.  It’s just that sometimes, I think differently than others and it doesn’t quite translate when I try to explain myself.

For example, like today, I enjoy getting one of those emails that has a goofy gobbling singing turkey ~ and I like to send it along!  Mind you, I try to only send it to those whom I think will giggle at the gobbler, but sometimes my giggling gobbler is met with annoyance.  For as much as I’m busy throughout my day and enjoy getting a giggle break, there are others whom do not find it amusing.  And I feel sorry for them.  By the way, I don’t do it often either so it’s not like there’s a barrage of stupid emails that I send out!

Then there’s when I want to say something that I think is really important and the words simply and suddenly elude me.  So I’ll start strong, speaking fluently and then just stop.  Dead stop.  And I can’t think of what I am trying to say.  It’s so frustrating to me and it’s frustrating for whomever I’m speaking with!  I know, I get it.  But it’s more worrisome to me than it is to my listener as it reminds me that after 15 surgeries, there are some definite brain cells missing that haven’t found their way home and probably won’t at this point.  Which could make me sad, but instead, I try to look on the bright side ~ I will survive ~ I can speak, I can understand and I can tell those closest to me that I love them!

I’m aware of my goofyness ~ I’m aware that I think differently than most people.  I’m most definitely aware that my body is scarred and not the form that most women are ~ and that bothers me too.  It’s hard to be a 40 something year old woman who has the skin, the hair, the body of a much older woman due to breast cancer and all that it involves.   It’s difficult to not feel most parts of my body due to being numbed by multiple surgeries.  It’s not a blessing to feel this insecure about how I look even though I try to pretend that I’m ok with the reality.

For the record, I’m not ok with it.  But I can’t go back so I just keep inching forward.  It’s all I can do really.

I’m not saying this for pity’s sake. I’m just telling you the reality of the disease.  Chemo packs a punch to the system, changes our skin, our hair and our bodies and minds forever.  Radiation does this as well.  Not to mention the foremost physical part which is damaging mentally and emotionally as well which is the removal of our breasts and the huge scars that are left in their place.  The loss of feeling, the loss of intimacy.  There’s a lot to it.

But nobody talks about those things which always surprises me.  When Angelina Jolie had her breasts removed prophelatically, people applauded.  But the reality is that her breasts were removed, the feeling in parts of her breasts was removed as well and that was never mentioned once.  I don’t mean to start a firestorm here because I too had both removed and only one had cancer at the time so I understand her motives.  I’m just saying that it’s not so easy.

Whew…how in the world did I get on this vein of thinking today, I’ll never know.  Perhaps there’s a reader out there who needed a little bit of understanding and camaraderie.  So if there is, then this one’s for you and my post in not all in vain.

Be Yourself.  Love Yourself.

Shine On!

xo

P.S.  Want the Gobbler Giggle?  Click here!

Let me know if you sang along, I Will Survive!

Daily Prompt: Land of Confusion

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us CONFUSION.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/daily-prompt-confusion/