Life is unpredictable and often taken for granted. Most of us are living life complaining about how hard it is and how miserable it is. I used to think my life wasn’t great… I was comparing myself to others and was trying to please everyone so I could be accepted. I was living in the past way too much, and I realized that it was in the way of my happiness.

Having to face a life-threatening illness, my vision changed. I envy and miss my old life. I know I will never have it all back, but I am hoping that one day, I could live somewhat a normal life.

Cancer showed me what is the most important in life. It led me to embrace and make the most of every moment and live one day at a time. It taught me to be grateful for what I have, and that you don’t need to be surrounded by a lot of people to be happy. The ones that show up for you no matter what are the ones you want beside you. Life is fragile and you don’t want to spend all your energy pleasing or fighting to be part of their lives.

I still have a lot of work to do to let go of the past, but you can’t change in a flip of a coin and it will always be a work in progress, but this is the positive view of it all and I consider this a blessing.

On the other hand, it can be a living hell. You always live in fear. You live with uncertainty each day. You can’t plan ahead of time, because you don’t know if you will be able to commit to it. You don’t know how long you have left. You don’t know what kind of news you will get at your next follow-up visit with your oncologist or surgeon. You live with constant stress.

Cancer eats you from the inside, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it or stop it. You can’t take control of it. Yes, there are treatments, but each of them has risks and can have long-term side effects. Those treatments’ side effects can also cause cancer…

What do you do? What choice do I have? You take the best option that feels right at this right moment and hope for the best and deal with the consequences “if” they arise.

I know there’s more negative than positive, but the positive outweighs the negative, and you keep fighting for those blessings and keep hoping that this living hell will be done and over with one day.

Keep Fighting!

Photo by Ian Chen on Unsplash