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The three finest words ever spoken to a cancer survivor

January 1, 1970 on 12:00 am | In Uncategorized |

Filed under: Breast Cancer, Cancer Survivors, Survivor Spotlight

The day before I was diagnosed with cancer, I thought I knew where I was going in life. All the pieces of my life seemed to be falling nicely into place. It was not a perfect life, but time was on my side. I had all the time in the world. What I had not yet done, I would still do. What I had not seen, I would still see. All that I had not yet become or accomplished I would one day claim as mine -- all in good time. In contemporary vernacular, I was living in the perspective attitude of "it's all good."

Then I found the lump. All had not been as good as I thought. Something in my body had been going quietly wrong for some time -- perhaps for years. How had I not known? One cancer cell becoming two cancer cells. Two cancer cells becoming four cancer cells, silently and exponentially growing into a malignancy that would stop time. That would shake my faith. My body had betrayed me. How would I be able to trust in it again?

For the last four-and-a-half years, I have been living under the shadow of cancer. Even when I willed myself not to focus on cancer, when I forced myself into attempting to live the normal every day life I had known before the cancer diagnosis, I failed. For every office visit when the blood work and checkup indicated the lack of new cancer, I merely took the news with the thought, "yes, but what about next time. Will next time be the time they find more cancer?"

Cancer was always there defining my life. Cancer was my every waking moment companion. Headaches. Sore muscles. Achy joints. Might be cancer. Each time one of my children celebrated another birthday, I celebrated that I had made it to one more of their birthdays because cancer had not taken that time away. Each Thanksgiving, I was thankful to have made it to one more Thanksgiving because I had not died from cancer before that Thanksgiving.

Universally, "I love you" are the three finest words that will ever be spoken. But today, the three finest words ever spoken were spoken when the doctor said, "Everything looks good." And for the first time, I did not think, "Sure, but what about the next time. Will next time be the time they find more cancer?" No, the news felt stand alone complete. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I might indeed have more time to live the life I imagined the day before I was told I had cancer. When I left the office, all I wanted to do was buy a new pair of shoes. I have places to go. Cancer is losing its hold.

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