
Letting The Water Under The Bridge
Cancer survivors need to keep up with the news. However, reading about a new study or risk factor might make us worry about past choices and/or current options, in a way we can't quite control.
As this new year dawned, I felt a thrill and a lightness of spirit. Later this year, I will celebrate the tenth year of my cancer diagnosis. I will celebrate because the diagnosis gave me life. Without it, I would be dead. I remain eternally grateful for caring professionals and modern medicine.
Then, I began to wonder. I woke up one morning wondering if I would ever stop thinking if I am living on borrowed time. Will I stop wondering if I have used my last ten years in a meaningful way? Will I stop reading as much as I can about cancer to try to understand what happened and/or to hope (especially hope) that it will not happen again?
I am fortunate cancer did not give me PTSD. It gave me, mostly, a lightness of spirit and an ability to smile through ordinary ordeals. If a plate breaks, I clean it up. If I am stressed at work, I go for a walk and breathe the air. And yet, sometimes I brood.
I think too much. I am the sort of person who needs to get wisdom as much as she needs to get understanding. While this wisdom-seeking nature comes in handy most of the time, it also makes me obsess about genes and oncogenes. It makes me not only guard against current carcinogens, which is a good thing but wonder about those of the past—and that is not a good thing. I need to let some of the water flow under the bridge.
Just this week, I got bogged down by a new study released by the
I knew then to avoid supplemental vitamin C and antioxidants. A book a friend recommended,
Water under the bridge, right? That was then. This is now, 2020. Hindsight is 20-20.
I need to learn to let go of thoughts that I might have done something wrong to become more susceptible to cancer or recurrence, despite risk factors and the HER2 overexpression. At the same time, I am open to learning more about the implications of supplements for cancer survivorship. Meanwhile, I need to think of each day as a gift and move ahead with the hope that surviving cancer can give us.
Cancer gave me both a lightness of spirit and, at times, a curious mind. Learning to survive with grace means working out that relationship between mind and spirit in order to move forward.