Second Chances

As I reflect back on my cancer journey, I can appreciate every moment of weakness, despair, hope, possibility and joy that I felt throughout the stages of my battle.  Today, I am reminded of my battle due to the scars, pain and changes in my mind, body and soul.  I was forever changed by cancer, and I am not able to completely feel how I felt prior to the cancer. I honestly can’t remember how it felt to live a pain free life. Thinking of that does bring a little sadness but at the same time I feel that I am a stronger and more fulfilled person today in spite of the aftermath from cancer.  By all means, I am not perfect, and I have endured other storms in my life that have also been challenging, but I feel that God helped me see that my inner strength could be used to push through the storm and that my unwavering spirituality kept me grounded.

At the beginning of my cancer battle, all doctors were trying to do is to keep me alive.  Then those same doctors tried to experiment by changing the administration of my chemo so it wouldn’t affect my heart because they were striving for me to live a full quality of life in the long term. Of course, in life things don’t always go according to plan and the cancer was resistant to the chemo treatment which meant that the cancer didn’t go away as we hoped it would. Once again, I was faced with life and death situation. The stages of my cancer battle were not easy to say the least, but without the doctors thinking of me surviving long-term things could have been different.  I have done some research on my own based upon information provided from my doctors and I have learned that some patients were affected by the aggressive chemo treatments and unfortunately despite being cancer free they later died of a heart attack as a consequence of the aggressive chemo treatment.  Sometimes I wonder if things would have occurred differently, would I be better or worse in the long run, I don’t know. All I know is that right now, as I continue to reflect back on my cancer journey, and as I write more blog posts, I am experiencing a sense of gratefulness for all the blessings in my life.   Thanks to God I am well and alive today because of the sequence of events that occurred during my cancer journey and if I had to do it all over again, I would not change anything.

Today, I have an inner peace and feeling of appreciation.  I am grateful for being alive and for having a second chance at life.  I am thankful to God for my opportunity to really appreciate and experience the precious gift of life and never again take it for granted.

#Thankful