What I have learned...

[chicagoetc]

This week has been one of reflecting / thinking about the time since diagnosis and how life has or has not changed. I posted this on Facebook and will here as well. It'd be great to hear from some of you and what you have or are learning. [I can't think/thank all of you enough for the important info/care that has come through this forum...]

Melanie

What I learned:

• - I know less than I thought
• - Life can be fragile
• - Death is real, just ahead
• - Better to fight for the positive than to avoid the negative
• - It's impossible to have cancer and be modest
• - Lots of people have had cancer
• - It's good to be loved
• - A smile can change an entire day
• - I like having hair on my head
• - I hate Taxol
• - There's no such thing as a boring bird

[Sheila]

And I must add that cancer gives us gifts of friends in our lives that we may never had the joy of knowing..

You are one of those gifts Melanie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also like hair, but mine gets more unruly by the day!!!!

[karen z]

Thanks for your beautiful post.

[Laurel]

Ditto on the hair, Melanie!

What I have learned?

I have learned that the nights are long beyond expression and lonely like an abyss during chemo. That during those long, lonely nights perched in my recliner it was just me and my God soldiering against the foe.

I learned that those nights recede into shadowy memory once life begins anew. While life is now different, because I am no longer immune to my own mortality, it is wonderful and savory, delicious in its sweetness.

I have learned how much my mother loves me, a gift I shall cherish into my old age. Cancer heals as you learn you are valued, treasured even, by the most surprising people. I learned who my true friends were, and who was afraid to pick up the phone, and I learned it did not matter.

I have learned to slow down and enjoy the sun on my face, the feeling of a cool autumn breeze in my hair, of sweat cascading between by shoulder blades in the hot summer heat. I've learned to smile on despite the new woman who stares back at me in the mirror, the woman who doesn't quite look like me anymore, but who grins ridiculously, shamelessly in fact, despite unruly hair, thin brows, and round, fuller cheeks complements of the meds I took and some I continue to take to fight on.

I'd like to think I am grateful for this cancer odyssey. I'd very much like to think I am changed for the better. I'd like to believe I've learned to dance in the rain and love getting wet.

[Becky]

Lovely post Melanie. Sounds like you know alot to me.

[Sherryg683]

I love this post so I have to add here...what I have learned

That God is with us always and will give us signs if we take the time to look for them. If we are silent and listen. He may not give us the answer we want but he is there.

There are just somethings that are beyond our control and we just have to lay them down at Gods feet.

That having cancer can bring the best and worse out in people. I was surprised that the ones that stepped up for me the most were the ones I never thought would...and visa versa.

That doctors are human and don't know everything. You need to be educated and active in deciding your own treatment.

When I look up at the stars at night, I get a certain peace in knowing there has to be something more.

That I will never ever again say that I am bored with life.

And I finally learned the meaning of true fear (sad to say)

[Pam P]

Lovely post, Melanie, and thanks for your additions Laurel and Sherry. A great read this morning!

Sometimes I think I've learned nothing, that I'm just muddling through, one foot in front of the other. Yet I've grown, changed, and evolved in these last 9 years. How much is due to the cancer experience and how much is the growing development of a mid-life mind - I'll never know.

I certainly agree with all of your insights and can see those learnings in my life too. I've also become much more 'myself' not feeling the need to conform and please others but to do what is my desire. And, yes, I like having hair on my head too (but don't miss shaving my legs)! Pam