Thinking Positive
This. This saying. This is everything to me, to my cancer journey.
My Grandpa Seibert was the most positive person I have ever met. I used to wish I could be as positive a person as he was. A lot of people have told me they admire my positivity in dealing with my cancer. I try to be positive and to see the positive in everything I go through, and I honestly believe it has been a gift from above from my grandpa during my cancer journey. I never set out to be so positive on this journey. It’s the lessons I’ve learned along the way that have made me faithful, grateful, and thankful … and positive. After all, what choice do I have? It’s not positivity that is my main strategy or coping mechanism in handling this cancer, this diagnosis, this fight, this journey. It’s this. This saying above.
It has always, for me, been about going one step at a time, mastering the next step and continuing to move in the right direction.
When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, back in 2015, I knew nothing, and I mean nothing, about breast cancer, let alone how I’d handle it. My first meeting with my oncologist — my what?! — he sat me down for hours, and he taught me, diagrammed for me, everything about breast cancer, my breast cancer. I walked out of there and had to call someone, my mom, right away, to try to process everything I’d just learned. My head was spinning with so much information, but all the time my oncologist spent with me, all the the information he gave me, was the greatest gift to me and the best start to my cancer journey because after that, I craved information and knowing what was going to happen next.
I still want to know what is going to happen next, once this cancer builds resistance to my chemo. But I have learned to relax and just enjoy being NED while I am. Yet, the temptation is always there to ask my current oncologist — What next? What next, I can deal with. First, it was chemo. Then radiation. Then surgery. Then, it was metastatic cancer. Back to chemo. Adding immunotherapy. What next? NED. And after that? It’s scary, the unknown. But whatever comes next on this journey, I will deal with. I will always keep looking forward on this journey; it’s what keeps me going. I’ll do whatever I have to to the best of my ability or the best I know how. And I believe that is what has made me positive along this journey — always looking forward to whatever it might be — life, death? New treatment? One step at a time, one day at a time.
When I have information, I can do something with it. I can’t change it, but I can do something with it. I can learn from it, choose to be positive about it, deal with it. To me, it’s not just about eating right, exercising, reducing stress, avoiding sugar, taking as many chemicals out of my daily routine as possible, or staying positive. Yes, it’s all of those things, I believe, that have helped me get to NED and stay NED for a long time, but I know there is only one true healer. I have to believe I have been healed. I don’t know the outcome, or how much time I have been given, but I can control my journey, my thoughts, and my reactions, and if I have done anything on this journey to help myself, it’s not my positive mindset, it’s my hope — my continually looking forward to what’s next and how I’ll deal with it to master the next step and keep moving in the right direction.
These are my thoughts today at chemo while I sit here alone and relaxed looking out the window at all the beautiful snow-covered trees while simultaneously wishing I were back in the Keys! I meet with my oncologist next week. I’ll update again if there’s any news. Otherwise, I’ll write from chemo again in two weeks.
Stay safe and healthy, everyone!