Living Well With Cancer Conference II

inkblot said:

Hi All:

This is going to be a bit long, so be prepared.

Tara, I'm so happy that you attended the conference. There are so many and varied issues that are important and we need all the advocacy we can muster. On every front!

I personally don't care for the term: Living Well With Cancer. Or any of the other myriad "Living Well With" this or that condition. Seems negative but that's just me.

If I could choose the name, it would be something like: Living Well in Spite of Cancer or in spite of Diabetes, the loss of loved ones, limbs and/or functioning of body
systems/parts. The point being that we CAN
choose to live well, no matter what's gone awry with our physical bodies. Our emotional response is often the biggest limiting factor. Consider quadraplegics, for example. Many of them are so well adjusted and lead fulfilling lives. Yes, they have struggles, yes they have difficulties. They have fears, worries and concerns. They have vitural mountains to climb, every day. I personally stand in awe of such individuals. I so admire their ability to swing left and right, to fight anyone who tells them no or goes negative.

I believe that bc and quadrapelgia have more in common that may seem obvious at first glance, if we think about it. Bc has much in common with many conditions. First, comes the trauma of diagnosis and some idea of prognosis. From that point onward, it's all up to us really. We have to get about making our best treatment decisions. We get educated and decide what's best for ourselves. We go through whatever that may be and all the while, we may be afraid, anxious, and have many concerns, in addition to the problems treatment itself may bring us. WE need support. Somehow, we all get through these early phases of our experience. Then, we're left with the aftermath. This, I believe, is when the real mental work begins. This is when most of us decide how we're going to handle our lives, on a day to day basis. We learn what it is that we really want and need and begin trying to get to it. The IT is different for all of us and reflects our unique inner beauty and strengths. It's a time of amazing discovery for many of us. Not all of it grand or glowing because we may see, for the first time, not so great qualities about ourselves which we may want to change. Situations in our lives which may need attention or change. Why? Because, now we see life differetly than before. We've been where many may never go to see what life really means to us...what's really important to us...who's really important to us. Once we see all that, then we become responsible for following through with what we're going to do about it.

If we allow fear to become our focus, then we deny ourselves all the wonderful things we could accomplish in our new found dimension in life. When fear rules, we lose our creativity. We lose our joy. We lose our feel good ability. We give our lives over to fear. This can make us physically ill in the process. We're emotionally stressed out day in and day out and we all know that takes a toll physically. We don't have many choices really. We can choose to fight with all our might...not just lip service and good intentions, but really FIGHT. Some days may find us clawing our way
10 steps up the hill and sliding back 3 but the next day may find us climbing 15 steps up the hill and not sliding back even one! That's progress. The name of the game is persistence, I believe.

Wonderful strides are being made every day in bc treatments/approaches. This is wonderful but much of what we can choose to do for ourselves has little or nothing to do with that. We have to trust the science and medicines available. Keeping in mind that those two things are limited. We, on the other hand, are not so limited. We only need to recognize and trust our own abilities. We can get counseling to help us find our feet or take medications to calm us and help us focus while we find our inner strength. Explore new avenues. Make new friends. Get out as often as we're able.
Even if it is only to the corner of the back yard for an intimate picnic and a few wonderfully shared hours! (Oh, how I loved that shared story) Hey, this is OUR
lives and we'll live it and have our joy in it as we see fit, thank you very much. No other attitude is gonna fly for the long haul.

I'm going on, but the only thing which gets me through and keeps me balanced is this: Whether I have 6 months left to live or six decades (the latter not likely any way you look at it, ha)...none of it matters so much as right now...this hour, this day. That is the one thing I know I CAN control...the quality of my living. I'm willing to do the work to make it happen. And it is work. I could never say that I'm just going to blow this breast cancer experience off and go back to my life the way it used to be...I cannot because I'm not the same person now. I'm better. The one thing I WILL allow breast cancer to do is serve to drag the very best out of me. As long as I am breathing and conscious, this is how I've decided that it's going to be. When problems or disappointments arise, then I'll deal with them, one at a time, each on their own merit. That could be anything from the car breaking down, when I'm already running late, to having a pain in my body. I try to remember that I had ordinary aches and pains in my body before bc and that I'll continue to have them now too. An old hip injury which flares up from time to time...a strained muscle here or there...a headache or two. Whatever. (Bonus:I don't miss having periods one iota!) I don't allow myself to think "it's back" just because I have a pain or two. We all know that if something is severely painful, then we must go to our docs immediately. Otherwise, there's no point in worrying unless it lasts an unusually long time, in which case, our docs will check it out and if there's nothing there, then we can forget about it being the wicked "c"! We have to control our imaginations in that regard. Teach ourselves to relax.

The point to all this is that we don't have to live in fear. We don't have to be afraid of everything. We don't have to give cancer more power than it deserves. WE don't have to allow it to rule our every thought and action. Instead, we can find beauty and some serentiy in our daily lives. WE can increase our capacity to give. Our capacity to love. Our capacity to learn. We can find our joy in the backyard, we can climb a tree if it suits us, or a simple drive in the country, through conversation with a good friend, in donning our favorite slippers or watching birds, writing, singing, painting, sculpting, sharing with our sisters, laughing at ourselves and with our friends, OFTEN. Reading a good book, giving ballet a go when no one is looking. FULFILLMENT is all there is. We can do all these wonderful, simple and beautiful things not with cancer, but in spite of it!!!

Yes, I'd have prefered never to have had to ride in this particular chariot in my lifetime but since I'm in it, and as long as I'm doing the driving, then it'll be driven with all the positive force I can muster. Like a bat out of hell, if you will. That's how it feels, in a sense, like we've visited hell. But even though our feet may be burning, WE can still decide just how we're going to handle and respond to it. I don't know that there is any "coming out the other side" of where we've been and where many of us still are. But one thing is for certain: inside, where it counts, we CAN achieve a lot more than we may initially think we can. Anything less and we're cheating ourselves.

Hugs to everyone.

Love, light and laughter,
Inkblot