Seize the day!

Being diagnosed with cancer, is scary. Terrifying. All of the plans you thought you had for your life and for your family are suddenly thrown into question. What will treatments be like? What will treatments do to me? Will I survive this?

Before you know it the treatments have started and you feel awful, every day. You struggle daily to feel normal, whatever that is. You are exhausted physically and emotionally. And you pray for more good days than bad days. Your friends and family rally around you, and offer help and support and prayers. You are in survival mode and focused on the next treatment, the next scan, the next appointment. And then it stops. Active treatment is over. You made it, and you are so very grateful for that. Very grateful to be doing well and getting clear scans. And very grateful for everyone who has been there for you over the past few months. Your treatments are starting a new phase, one you could not have emotionally prepared for if you tried. Maintenance treatments (and all the side effects) will last 5-10 years depending on diagnosis. (My treatment plan includes 5 years of maintenance treatments.) One day you wake up and you realize that you are “better” and “not better” all at the same time. Your friends and family have gone back to their normal routines. You are now trying to find a new normal, and you feel so lost because you don’t know where to begin. All of the carefully made plans you used to have suddenly don’t seem as important as they once did. Your focus has shifted. You are happy to be here, happy to now be considered a survivor – even though you don’t yet feel like one but you feel like you have been in a battle, because you have, and you are assessing the damage. You look different. You feel different. You have aches and pains you didn’t once have. You have some new rules to play by and you are still figuring them out. And although your friends and family still check in on you, it may not be as frequent as it was when this was all so new and that has you feeling alone. Even if they check on you often you still, unfortunately, feel alone because (let’s be honest) this battle is happening in YOUR body and you cannot get a break from it. It’s there when you wake up, and it’s there when you go to sleep. By this point you have been battling this demon physically and mentally for several months, without a reprieve. There are no days off, and you are tired.

For me, this is when the hardest part of the mental battle began. It is so easy, so incredibly easy, to allow yourself to “go down the rabbit hole” of “why me”. Why am I having to deal with this? This isn’t fair. My most often used description is “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired”.

I want you to know that it is difficult to fight this part of the battle and difficult to pull yourself from this dark place, but YOU CAN do this! You have already fought such a hard battle, and you are a warrior! It will take a lot of work though, and a lot of help you may not have ever realized you need. Find a close friend to talk to, or a therapist if needed. Make sure you are practicing self-care. And most importantly, go easy on yourself. If you feel like you need to take a day to rest, then rest. If you need to cry in the shower, do it. If you need to not think about things for a while find a hobby, take a walk, watch a movie or read a book. The main point here is that you owe it to yourself to pull yourself from that dark, lonely place, and focus on what you want now. Make a list of all those things you said you would do “someday”. Learn another language, go back to school, volunteer, start a new job… the possibilities are endless. Instead of focusing on what has been taken from you, start focusing on what has been given to you. A second chance at life, an opportunity to reinvent yourself, and an opportunity to take yourself a little less seriously. Smile every chance you get, laugh every chance you get, and love every chance you get. Why not? Why not take this second chance, this new beginning, and make it everything you want it to be? Go out there and seize the day that you are so blessed to be here to enjoy!