In the first months after I was told I had breast cancer, I wondered if cancer would ever be out of my consciousness.
Would it ever move out of my eyesight?
Or out of earshot?
Would it ever be anything other than my entire world?
Stop consuming every thought?
Stop feeding and creating terror?
I asked Evy and Maureen, friends who are also breast cancer survivors, those questions. Really.
I remember standing in the reception area at work and asking Maureen "does cancer ever move away from right here?" as I held my hand two inches from my face.
At Applebee's with Evy, I sobbed (literally) that same question, in many different forms.
Their answers were calming and reassuring.
But I didn't believe them.
I just returned from 7 days at the Oregon Coast.
It was Beautiful.
Beautiful weather.
Beautiful time with my family.
Beautiful time with God.
Beautiful in the freedom of nothing. No schedule. No list. Nothing.
I read books -- entire books -- for the first time since last summer. Even non-fiction. That means chemo brain is relenting. Somewhat.
And I did read one novel. It wasn't anything great or remarkable. In fact, almost a waste of time. But there was one quote in the book that hit me over the head.
That quote answered my question about the terror of cancer moving out of my consciousness.
In the book, one character says to another:
"do not pick up a sack of fear and carry it with you everywhere, just waiting until the next test and diagnosis..."
Perhaps cancer terror can move out of my consciousness...but it is up to me.
There are lots of different things in life that I can fear.
Cancer.
Baldness.
Surgery.
Chemotherapy.
Death.
Life itself.
But, perhaps, if I refuse to pick up the sack of fear and carry it with me everywhere, perhaps then I can see past the cancer.
I won't forget the terror.
I won't forget the blessings.
But I will not continue to be terrorized by cancer.
I will not pick up the sack.
I refuse.
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