Those of you reading my blog for a while now know that I have a friend who was diagnosed with very aggressive breast cancer last fall. Yesterday she was pronounced cured.
Oh, we know. She’ll need to be monitored closely for a while. And “cure” is a tricky word when it comes to cancer. Nonetheless, anyone who has ever battled cancer or had a loved one who did knows what a relief yesterday’s verdict was. And what a relief it is for my friend to be finishing up her treatment—radiation and chemotherapy. By the time I see her late in June she swears she’ll be her old self again—at least in terms of energy.
They say that attitude makes a huge difference with any illness. That’s something I deeply believe. And she’s a fighter. She fought Hepatitis C and won that battle, too. It’s been years since they could find any trace of it in her system. Now she’s won this battle as well.
I think part of it is that she’s got a lot to live for. She has good friends and children she loves and a husband who is loving and supportive. She wants to see what the future holds—for all of them and for herself.
And that’s the key for all of us, I think. To be fully engaged in life, to know how to laugh and find joy and care deeply about others around us. If we do these things then every moment matters and we are most likely to have the resilience we need to cope if something like cancer comes into our lives.
I know that I’ll be celebrating tonight and looking forward to seeing my friend and laughing with her again in a month or so. Thank you everyone who told me here or privately that they were praying for my friend. She has said more than once that she felt the power of all the prayers being said for her by so many wonderful people.
April
