Life. Love. Cancer.

We’re on the eighth part of Life. Love. Cancer. It seems odd to say it, but I’m kind of sad that we’re at this part already. Writing these posts has helped me in ways I hadn’t even realized.

They have been challenging but in a good way. Many times I have struggled and wondered where I would go with each installment, often to the point of tears. Now I realize that the tears weren’t tears of frustration, but my way of coming to terms with my diagnosis.

I believed I had dealt with all of it. In my heart of hearts I didn’t think there was anything left to confront. Well, anything short of death itself. I see now that I still had a lot of anger and frustration to work out. Writing this series has helped me to find a sort of internal peace that works well with my determination to not give up hope.

Before all of this, hope was just a word on a page. With every appointment, every scan, I sank deeper into the acceptance. I wrote letters and planned holidays that were over the top. Plans that I never had the energy to carry out, but the plans were there just the same. I focused all my energies on the end because that’s what I was told to do.

But it wasn’t me. I hated the feeling of waking up every day and going through the motions. I wasn’t living. I was waiting to die.

Waiting.

To die.

I started blogging about all the things that were happening and the response was overwhelming. People left comments and sent positive thoughts my way. They sent emails and offered encouragement. Perfect strangers brought to life a small glimmer of hope.

Today I write this and I know that I have made peace with the fact that I might die. I might die. My oncologists and varied physicians aren’t God. They do what they know to do in the best way they know how to do it. They give facts based on tests and labs and co-morbidities. I know the odds are against me. I know I might die.

The thing is, I also might live.

All the prayers, all the words of encouragement, and all the healing vibes might be just the thing to lead me to a miracle. I know that I don’t deserve one more than anyone else. There is nothing extraordinary about me that sets me apart from all the other people in the world who are fighting for their lives. I’m a girl in a world full of sadness and strife, in a world full of struggle and unfairness.

Am I wrong to hope? Is it selfish of me to watch my little girls and hope against all hope that I will beat the odds, that I’ll be there when they grow up? Maybe so; but holding them close and listening to them laugh only fuels the fire, the will and the desire to come through this on the other side.