By Cathy Chapman, Ph.D.
I've had a number of people tell me how grateful they were for having cancer. No, they weren't grateful because they were ill and had to go through surgery, chemo and radiation. They were appreciative because of all they learned. They had to make decisions for their care and how they would emotionally handle what had happened to them.
Imagine you are 25-years old and have been having strange things happening with your vision. The doctor tells you he needs to do a test to find out whether or not your have melanoma behind your eye. He can't tell you he's sure that you have it, but he's pretty sure. The only way to know for sure is to take out your eye. Even if you don't have cancer, you still lose your eye. What would you do?
I know this woman who had to face this horrible decision when she was about 25-years old. I never head the story from her. Everything I know is from her mother who has such admiration for her daughter. Mom describes her as always being a fearful child. This child, now an adult, had to decide whether to let go of her eye or not. She had to play the odds. She did let them take the eye. She found out she had melanoma. The folks at the cancer hospital still ask her to come back every six months for check-ups, not that she really needs them. They want to watch her because she is the longest living survivor, more than 25 years, with this type of cancer.
He mother tells me that when her daughter stared death in the face, this young woman made a decision. No matter what she was afraid of, she was not going to let fear stop her from living. If she was afraid of it, she'd push right through it. She's a middle aged mother of three now. She does what she can to be sure her children have a variety of experiences and she won't let them quit because they are afraid.
Cancer at the age of 25 convinced her to live life to the fullest no matter how much time she had to live.
Whether she would have made this decision without cancer, I don't know. There comes a time each person has to make a decision as to how to experience his or her time on earth. Some need a major life-threatening event to convince them not to wait around on the sidelines watching others have all the experiences. Still others come out of the womb ready to experience everything possible. What have you decided? If you haven't made the decision yet, when are you going to?
I've had a number of people tell me how grateful they were for having cancer. No, they weren't grateful because they were ill and had to go through surgery, chemo and radiation. They were appreciative because of all they learned. They had to make decisions for their care and how they would emotionally handle what had happened to them.
Imagine you are 25-years old and have been having strange things happening with your vision. The doctor tells you he needs to do a test to find out whether or not your have melanoma behind your eye. He can't tell you he's sure that you have it, but he's pretty sure. The only way to know for sure is to take out your eye. Even if you don't have cancer, you still lose your eye. What would you do?
I know this woman who had to face this horrible decision when she was about 25-years old. I never head the story from her. Everything I know is from her mother who has such admiration for her daughter. Mom describes her as always being a fearful child. This child, now an adult, had to decide whether to let go of her eye or not. She had to play the odds. She did let them take the eye. She found out she had melanoma. The folks at the cancer hospital still ask her to come back every six months for check-ups, not that she really needs them. They want to watch her because she is the longest living survivor, more than 25 years, with this type of cancer.
He mother tells me that when her daughter stared death in the face, this young woman made a decision. No matter what she was afraid of, she was not going to let fear stop her from living. If she was afraid of it, she'd push right through it. She's a middle aged mother of three now. She does what she can to be sure her children have a variety of experiences and she won't let them quit because they are afraid.
Cancer at the age of 25 convinced her to live life to the fullest no matter how much time she had to live.
Whether she would have made this decision without cancer, I don't know. There comes a time each person has to make a decision as to how to experience his or her time on earth. Some need a major life-threatening event to convince them not to wait around on the sidelines watching others have all the experiences. Still others come out of the womb ready to experience everything possible. What have you decided? If you haven't made the decision yet, when are you going to?
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