so I'm a survivor now - now what?

Hi Mary~
I did alot of praying..making snow angels(I had my hoopla in the winter'04/'05)and read Psalm 121 ALOT! I also journaled.
this is a GREAT place to let out feelings.fears & tribulations!
God Bless you with peace and His grace.
Cindie

Dear Mary,

It took me 10 months and 3 biopsies to get an accurate diagnosis! I'm the 4th woman in my family to have breast cancer. I still have a total mastectomy to get through next week, but I've had many months of emotional stuff too. I agree, the emotions change daily, sometimes hourly! For a long time I was terrified, and then angry, I mean, hasn't my family suffered from this disease enough?! I've had much sadness and a sense of loss, and occasionally beautiful moments of grace and peace. This road has many twists and turns, and it wasn't one I would have chosen, but now that we're on it, we have to make the best of it, or it will eat at you. It changes you forever, but that doesn't have to be bad! I always believed that we can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we react to it. Cancer is a bully, and it's up to all of us to say "no more"! Please give yourself permission to feel anyway that you are, nothing is right or wrong. Be patient with yourself, but most of all, be kind! You deserve kindness after battling this. Women take care of so many people, we don't know how to take care of ourselves! I take lots of long walks in the woods, get massages, see friends, get out with supportive people, and sometimes warn people that I'm a basketcase, and to stay away! lol I hope you will treat yourself to kindness and patience. This is the time to put yourself first. Do things that you love to do again, and please let us now how you are doing! The women here are so generous, and kind.

Very best wishes to you!

Susan

Hi critter12,

I agree with the other ladies here and particularly on the point of our becoming survivors from day one. Our journey of survival and to, yes, THRIVING, begins when we're told that we have cancer.

For many women, the emotional healing can be the most difficult (and often longer) part of the journey. For some it's the beginning of a tremendous growth period. We suddenly realize how fragile life can be and what a gift it is just to be here to love and be loved and appreciate the beauty in every single day. In a world where everyone is in a rush to hurry up and live, it's an adjustment to find ourselves slowing down and beginning to smell the flowers. But oh, do we need to smell those flowers!!! Though our passage is fraught with dangers galore, we persevere.

It's not easy finding our new balance. We've been through so much fear and pain, that most of us end up feeling sort of like a deer caught in the headlights, when our constant care ends...we can feel alone and adrift and wondering how on earth we're going to cope. We wonder if our cancer will suddenly reappear and no one will be right on top of it, etc.. Our imaginations are powerful things if not kept in check on the negative side. Most of us felt this way, when our active treatment ended and we were sent home with an appoint. for 3
months later. There's typically no "exit" instructions or counseling to ease our way back into something resembling a normal life. Truth is that our normal has changed forever.

I found a good coping strategy in realizing that just as I'd put a lot of energy and thought into my active physical treatment, I was also determined to do the same for my emotional healing. I've never been one to sit back and wait for things to find me, so I took a pro-active approach to creating balance in my life. Accepting and embracing the stages of healing as they developed. Some were amazing and beautiful while others were draining...particularly the work to rid myself of living in fear about my cancer coming back. Sometimes it seemed as if it was two steps forward and three steps but I was determined to just keep stepping.

One thing I'm sure of is that you can do this and do it well. Just love yourself and make time for yourself to work on your issues in your own way and in your own space of time. No deadlines really. Just a goal and a sustained focus and you'll get there. Be flexible. If something isn't working for you, be able to change your approach. We each must find the things which work best for us. We're all different and what works for one may not be so valuable to another person.
Experiment and try differnt approaches on for size. Whatever you do though, don't sit idle and wait for perspective and healing to strike. Take an active and determined approach. Finding peace in your new, enlightened life requires effort.

I believe that the emotional blows of having cancer can be equally severe or even moreso than our physical ones in many ways. Still, perspective and healing are waiting for you! Believe that. It's just the next part of your journey. Don't be afraid. While it isn't easy and there are no quick fixes, try to get comfortable in closely examining your particular fears, issues, strengths and weaknesses and make a plan for addressing each, in time, with patience and caring for yourself. A good counselor can help us get going in the right direction. Re-connecting with our self-esteem can be an amazing process. Many of us can get stuck here though because we are looking for our "old" values and thinking to help us out, but that seldom happens because we are changed now. Our very thinking has changed. We're still the same people we were before basically, but we have the opportunity now to put our new found knowledge into being even better than before. That change can become a blessing or a curse, depending upon how we manage it.

I've seen some women who live their lives, post cancer, afraid and withdrawn, overcome by stress and the physical ailments it can manifest and that's a sad thing. To live ones life in constant fear can rob one of all sense of joy, happiness and peace. It's as if they become stuck in a grief process and can't get past it. While it's perfectly ok to have these feelings, it isn't perfectly ok to allow them to stay...to allow them to dictate who we are. I say, experience them, cry, be sad, be self-pitying, be angry, be all of it. It's ok as long as we continue to move forward and find we're experiencing these feelings less and less and that they're being replaced by their opposites.

Once we've beaten the beast on a physical level then we must beat it on the emotional level. I think this fact is something still very much in the shadows or our cancer experience. Somehow, society expects us to just bounce back and go on as if nothing much happened. Some serious, dark age thinking, if you aks me. So, we must make a conscious effort to achieve our peace. Always.
Just because so many "expect" us to "get over it"...well, the best I can say is to leave them with that thought and don't worry about what anyone else thinks. You know what you need.

My philosophy is this (and it took a while to get it engrained into my psyche): Here we are. We are alive. We took an un-expected and dreadful trip into someplace none of us were equipped to travel. Who could be prepared for such a trip?
I mean, what does one pack for such a journey anyway and who do these people think they are, telling me I have to go there??? They must be insane or mistaken. Finally, how am I going to survive it? The nature of the journey, unfortunately, dictates that there isn't much time for thought about it. Considering that we're in for one rough ride, with nothing more than a rag-tag boat and two sturdy oars, here's how our journey may look:

We hang on to the oars with all our might. We're not experienced in this kind of navigating, in such fierce rapids, but we're determined to make it down this wretched river, littered with dangers...especially at night...whirling vortex's here and there...jagged rocks jut out all around us and there are things living in this river that we do NOT want in our boat! We paddle as furiously as we can. We think and paddle at the same time. We must, because the river doesn't wait. Sweat drenches us. We paddle on. Our bodies ache all over and we have little more than a quarter moon and our wits to guide us. Sometimes it rains. Other days, we're parched by the sun. We don't know and cannot see what's ahead. We paddle on. We try to steer our boat through the dangerous obstacles as they present themselves and hope we miss the most threatening ones. The spray is furious and we can barely see a foot in front of us so how can we know which way to go? Nothing to do but to paddle as we try to develop a "feel" for the waters. We struggle and sometimes cry but we never stop paddling. Every ounce of our energy, our focus, our thoughts and our actions are being expended in keeping our boat afloat and upright. Keeping ourselves alive. Worse yet, there's no one in this boat but ourselves. We have no map. Our loved ones, friends and family, having heard of our un-expected journey, line the banks of the river...watching and yelling encouragement and warning us of dangers and trying to tell us which way to go. We can barely see or hear them but we feel their love and caring. Even the roar of the rapids cannot diminish the love coming to us. It's a warm and wonderful thing and it helps us to believe in ourselves...to believe that yes, we CAN get this boat into calmer waters. We continue to paddle. Some try to throw a life-line but we cannot take our hands off the oars. We are the only person who can navigate our pitiful boat. It's a good thing at this moment that it's our boat which is pitiful and not us! We continue to paddle. We develop rashes from the constant motion. Everything hurts, inside and out. But we can't stop paddling. We get tired and sometimes, lonely. We paddle on. Then, up ahead, we spot what appears to be another boat in the same predicament we're in. Yep, there it is. One lonely soul sits sternly in her battered boat, her oars clinched in hands blistered and bleeding...in hands of steel. I realize that, like me, she is terrified. Like me, she didn't have time to pack or plan for this trip. Like me, she is paddling for her life. She sees me and I swear I saw her place her hand over her heart! Does she know me?
Do I know her? I can't make out her face but something about her posture, alone there in her boat, reminds me of someone? I paddle harder to try to catch up to her. To my surprise, she's paddling in my direction! Who is this brave woman approaching me? Oh, I want to ask her so many things about this river and this journey. Where do the rapids end? How long is this river? How do we find nourishment when we finally get to calmer waters? Where can we rest? Are there more dangers ahead? She's waving to me now. Just round the next bend, we both burst through into calmer waters. Finally!!! I'm almost afraid to be here? To my amazement, I'm still alive. To my further surprise, there, on the banks of the calmer waters, are throngs of women, just like myself. Women shockingly thrown into the same river, without warning and the only directions they were given, like myself, were almost as terrifying as no direction at all. They help pull my boat onto shore with gentle, battle scarred, yet strong arms. And there, I discover that while I made it, there are miles yet to go. Miles to find peace and healing. Miles to understanding what has happened to me. I rest for a time, with my new found friends and learn a lot. I even learn that several of the women got thrown into this river a 2nd or even a 3rd time! Again, without warning but better prepared because the scars and callouses on their hands and hearts of steel, served them well. I learn that while I'm still afraid, I can ease my boat back into the waters, knowing that for this part of the journey, I have a choice in which way I want to go and can pick and choose my stops as well as parts of the river which I may merely want to explore and discover. After the harrowing struggle to get where I am, I'm not about to stop paddling now...

The story has many more chapters because finding perspective and healing is like that. An adventure of sorts. A looking glass that reflects our unique experiences as our journey continues. Write your own chapters. Remember, that for all the wildness of the journey, there's also, always, a bit of a quiet reservoir, where we can bob about from time to time. Not fighting...just lost in our thoughts and our plans for our futures. As opposed to worrying and fretting. While we're bobbing, we're often healing. Finding our peace and learning to focus more on the beauty and love we have to share, rather than fears about what other wretched waters we may find ourselves in. Life is like that too. We cannot know what lies ahead. What we CAN know is that we're here, we're alive and we're growing from our un-expected travel experiences! No crystal balls, just us and our innermost selves, striving to make whatever time we have the best it can be. Believing this will make it so. Everything else is just icing on the cake of our unique lives.

Hope something in that may help you to see that you have all the resources you need to get going on this next part of your journey...the healing part. Just go ahead and reach an understanding with yourself of how it's going to be and get busy getting there. Rainbows have even been spotted, along with the peace and tranquility you're sure to find. (((((critter12)))))

Love, light and laughter,
Ink

dbqueen said:

Ink - This was so beautiful. The paragraphs around the unexpected trip down the river. I am crying as I sit here. You really captured the experience. I must cut and paste and share with some friends. I will give credit to "Inkblot" since I don't know your name, and I hope you don't mind. This year has been hell and I almost didn't make it, but just came back from a mile walk feeling such joy at still being here, then read your wonderful posting! If you aren't a writer, you should be. Thanks so much.

Hi dbqueen,

I'm glad you liked the post. I don't mind your sharing at all. If one person can find one thing helpful in reading my little "story" of sorts to critter, then it's worth everything. Life is like that, too. LOL We can read volumes or hear many speeches and it may not really touch us...then, sometimes, we read a paragraph or two or just a few sentences or perhaps hear a comment someone makes, even off-handedly, and it can light us up and we're off and running. Anything which helps, even a little, in our darkest times, is such a beacon.

What I'm really happy about is that you're here!!!
There's no doubt in my mind that you're especially happy about that too!!! LOL Your joy shines through. I can feel that your heart is full and that just makes my day!!! THAT, dbq, is a gift.

Love, light and laughter,
Ink

Critter12:
So sorry for what you're going thru with your emotions. The best thing that works for me (and what you describe) is relaxation and meditation. I'm sort-of a stress coach for some people in my b.c. support group and many of my methods work very well for depression as well as stress and anxiety. Please try this: For relaxation, you should (slowly) inhale for 7 seconds and exhale for 7 seconds. Say the word "inhale" in your head while inhaling, and say the word "exhale" in your head while exhaling. Do this 3 times a day for 5 to 15 minutes at first. Then extend the amount of time by a few minutes each day. Before you know it, you will have an excellent technique you can use anywhere, anytime, for dealing with whatever stresses you in the moment. Also, for daily meditation, try sitting in a comfortable chair, hands in your lap. (Eyes can be closed or open.) Then for 7 seconds each, focus your attention on each body part starting with your toes, all the way up to the top of your head. Personally, my most effective daily meditations have been based on healing scriptures from the Bible. Please give these a try, they really work. Another personal favorite of mine is visualizing walking along beach while relaxing in a chair that reclines. This can be done at home or in the car. I really hope this helps. I'm sending healing hugs to you.

Hi Mary, many blessings to you. This is the first time that I talk to someone about this. I had a bilateral mastectomy 4 years ago. I really think this is a very personal illness. May be it sound weird but what I mean is that you can only look at it as with the same philosophy that you look everything in you life.
I am going to tell you about me, just what I feel.
In a sense I do not see myself as a "survivor" and I do not believe that anybody that die from cancer "lost the battle". Life is not only the addition of all good things that happen to a person, I view life as the addition of all thing that we experience, good and bad, because all these things make us what we are. I understand that when I die I have had completed the cycle of my physical life no matter as other see it as good or bad. I am sure that you have endure many things worse than cancer, probably the lost of a love one. And I am sure that you have found love, kindness and understanding in many people that you have know through this experience. I am sure that you will live the life that is for you. Live it will love, do not recriminate yourself for thinking one way or another. I think you are just a wonderful person that have undergone a serious illness, but will continue your life as you decide to live it. But I am telling you, You don't need to survive, Live plenty Your Live. We will all die someday of something, a rock in our head? a heart attack for many worries? an air plain accident? But I am sure that all our loves ones will remember us for what we were for them.
I hope I have not offended you with my expressions. The best to you, for what I am sure that what you are is the perfect expression of God love.

Regards,
Milagros