Looking Back - 9 Months Later

Most of the past nine months has been a whir of activity, primarily focusing on breast cancer - diagnosis, treatment, side effects, and survivorship. Only now am I starting to see the forest through the trees, but there are certainly many lessons I have learned along the way.

My daughter commented recently that my point of view on what is important in life has definitely changed since my diagnosis. She is pleased to see that I am focusing less on work, and more on taking care of myself. That I am focusing less on taking care of everyone else, and treating myself better in the process. These are things that I have always strived for, but could never justify in the past. Why does a cancer diagnosis finally justify it? Why did I ever have to justify focusing on myself?

Here I am, the nurse, the caregiver, the family anchor, the daughter who looks after her ailing father taking care of his bills, his medications, and listening to his daily "organ" recital, the daughter-in-law, who worries as her aging deaf 95 year old father-in-law lives day-to-day in an assisted living facility, the wife who worries that her husband's 4 hour commute each day is too stressful, making him tired and unable to do the things he used to do, the mother who worries that her daughters, now in the work force, are spending way too much working and not enough time playing. How can I blame them, they learned from the best ;->.

My daughter also commented that my life history has been filled with little "bumps" that have made me stop for moment and take notice of my choices. So that while cancer is not something I would have ever wished for, it did make me stop, take notice, and make decisions to change the course of my life in a positive way. I have learned to take the lemons and make lemonade.