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Hi Michele, thanks for sharing your thoughts...I agree with your "forced courage" ideas...I, too, never thought of myself as being the least bit courageous and it always made me uncomfortable when people I knew would say "Oh, you're so brave!" because I was undergoing cancer treatment. What choice did I have--it didn't feel brave and I certainly didn't feel brave while getting surgery, chemo, radiation and Herceptin!
However, I do now consider myself to be a brave person, having weathered all of this so far. I do think it takes a certain amount of courage just to get out of bed in the morning and face the day and whatever is going to be thrown your way. We cancer survivors all live with the fear of recurrence and treatment failures, but we're still out there, soldiering on, trying to live our lives to the fullest. I am still a bit afraid of flying, but have definitely gotten over my fear of needles and blood tests! If I have a recurrence and am offered chemo or gamma knife, etc., I will still be afraid but know I will have the courage to say "Bring it on" I want to live to see my kids graduate, too! I think that discovering our inner strength can be one of the silver linings of the cancer experience, don't you? Love, Audrey
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