Wisdom in the Simple Pleasures

It's been a month since I found out that I was in remission. Boy, does the time fly! AND I am almost done with this semester of hell. Praise God.

It wasn't before I heard the word 'cancer' for the first time that I really knew what fear was. At that very moment, I knew my life would never be the same. I learned to read every pain, every scan, every checkup for signs my cancer had spread.

And these fears didn't end with treatment. They have persisted because the danger still does. After I finished chemo, friends and family look at me with all of my hair still and very healthy looking and assumed I was all better. I have had to remind them through gritted teeth that my oncologist wouldn't call me cured for 5 years.

The second hardest phase—after my initial diagnosis—was the minute treatment ended. The reality set in and I have to live with this the rest of my life and the safety net is gone.

Cancer has stolen my youthful confidence that "everything is going to be alright."

People think chemo is the worst part of getting cancer, and yes, losing hair, nausea, and menopausal symptoms are awful. But those physical traits pale in comparison to the mental challenge of managing fear. I would analyze every word my doctor said and obsess over what it meant when he called my cancer aggressive. I have laid awake at night wondering if the pain in my stomach was from the food I ate or if there was a tumor.

But as a cancer patient and survivor, I learned to cope with the fear by being vigilant. I go into appointments with lists of things that I think could be abnormal, but the constant vigilance is exhausting. It is draining, but it has made me tough. Over the months—and the scares and biopsies and bad scan results—I learned something else besides fear. I learned that coping with fear is a muscle, and mine has gotten stronger. I have worked it. I have exercised it. I have come to believe it. I can face another biopsy because I have done it before.

Don't get me wrong. I still get nervous waiting for test results and I still monitor my aches and pains. But I take comfort in the passage of time—every month that goes by without incident lowers the chance of recurrence—and I know I can muscle through the fear and continue to live my life.

I live my life being thankful because having cancer has shown me how precious life is and that it can be stolen away at any moment. I have earned my gratitude, and I need to enjoy it.

After having lost chunks of hair and vomiting and fearing death for months, I have become remarkably easy to please. But I have found that there is wisdom in savoring simple pleasures.

I was walking across campus the other day, and the crisp morning breeze started blowing, and it blew my shirt against my skin in a way that made me stop and think, "This is what is means to be alive."

I've often had those realizations since my diagnosis. Sometimes when I am sitting in class watching the leaves fall outside or laying on a friends couch snuggling with a puppy, I am struck by how lucky I am to be living through such moments.

I have seen the alternative. 

I know I could just as easily be in a chemo chair, fighting off an infection in a hospital bed, or facing death. 

But instead I get to feel the sun and rain on my skin and hear my friend's laughter every day.