For me the hardest part about having cancer is not ever understanding why or how it happened. You scroll through your Rolodex over and over in your head and nothing makes sense. Every new research report I see only makes me angry. Fact is … when it comes to prevention we just don’t know. By all research accounts I did everything right. I’ve never smoked. I rarely have a drink of alcohol. I #exercise. I eat right. I even breast-fed both of my children for a full year in part because the “research” said it would decrease your risk for getting breast cancer. And I don’t carry the gene.
Yet somehow the sniper got me! I was a sitting duck and I got hit. So then all your medical team can do is go on the defense. Sometimes they cut the cancer out. Sometimes they poison you and put drugs in your body that kill cancer and everything else. Some people don’t survive the treatment. They literally get killed by the treatments. And sometimes they burn you. They literally burn your body in an effort to kill cancer. Chemo, surgery, and #Radiation. The cancer treatment trifecta.
Cancer treatment breaks you down … physically and emotionally.
When they can’t find any more #cancer they say “you won!” Won what?!? A battle I never asked to fight?!? And you’re left laying on the ground picking up the pieces and trying to find a sense of normal again. You’re supposed to be happy because you’re still breathing. You’re supposed to be grateful that you have a second chance at life. You’re not supposed to focus on what you’ve lost, or the moments that were stolen from you, or your risk of recurrence. Well forgive me if I struggle with that sometimes. Every now and then that positive outlook bursts and the flood of emotions just come pouring out. Anger. Frustration. Bitterness.
Today is one of those days. Today I am human. I will allow a moment of weakness and vulnerability. And tomorrow I will put my rose-colored glasses back on and move forward. ~ Robin G.