It's hard to find encouragment online when you are diagnosed with MBC..I have been on the breastcancer.org website where I am a member there since the initial diagnosis back in 2013. There are many wonderful forums to participate in as well as articles to educate me about this disease..but there is also a button to click in order to go to blogs that are written by other women in my situation..with metastatic disease..The moderators advise to visit these blogs. I have been, nearly everyday, with one result. There are not too many still active. The reason is because their authors are no longer with us..some passed not too long after I thought I was out of the woods and stopped reading, talking, or writing about cancer more than a year ago, others more recently..I feel like I ran so very fast and far away from the subject of breast cancer, and I feel guilty for doing that now. Now that I have it back, I am hanging onto anything, anyone who can show me that it is possible to stay alive with this disease, and to actually live life with it!
I'm not ready to die..not yet. Of course I am not the one who decides..God does.
I have found a handful, a small handful of bloggers out there who are managing to live beyond the median of one to three years, and who are (mostly) still feeling well enough to write, but it is hard to ignore the stark reality of how many on that list are now gone.
So I've been wrapped up in a heavy cloak of discouragement these last few days.
And then I remembered what I've learned so long ago..
If you can't find it..Be it. Maybe this is my turn to shine some light? To lead by example, to be there for the next woman who finds herself thrown into this dark and scary world of MBC.
Back in the eighties and nineties when I went against the grain of societal norms and decided to forego a career and stay home with my three daughters, when I gave up the 'American dream,' of having a beautiful big home and new cars in order to be home when my children climbed down from their school bus, or to be there at the school with them as a regular volunteer/helper..Back then I had a hard time finding any support, anyone to identify with in my community. (this was the pre-internet world.) I decided to become my own expert stay at home mom and homemaker..learning to bake bread and formulate fun games and projects for my kids and the neighbor kids during the summer..and then something happened..I started to become THAT mom..The one where the kids wanted to come over for homemade cookies and story-time..the one that people would actually drop their child off and drive away! Yes, really it happened more than once, and different people too! We were the 'Safe haven' and when the neighbor kids got too bored with all our rules and stuff..they moved on..onto more dangerous places, more excitement and freedom from anything or anyone deemed safe.
So, here I am living in this tiny forested community in the great "UP NORTH"..nearly fifty miles from the city where I recieve all my cancer treatment..there are no yoga classes, or counselors here.
The only time breast cancer visits this town is in the strange form of a local group of people who dress their men up in frilly pink bras and raise money to "Save the Boobies."..I am not even going to write anything more on that..time is too precious to waste. Suffice to say, we live in a weird and kinda wild place..maybe that's why so many neighbor kids were so wild back then. My three had us, their safe haven for as long as they needed.
So, here I am again..trying to create a place, forging anew into a very uncertain future in a wild and scary world called 'Cancer'..Welcome to my world.
The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”
Matthew 4:16
