The Beginning: My First Steps with Cancer…Where the Journey began [READ FIRST]

 The pages that follow this introduction are blogs I started writing when I was diagnosed with Stage IV Advanced Breast Cancer.  These older blogs  are listed in the sidebar column, in chronological order from the very first blog, after my diagnoses  on February 14, 2006. Current Posts are those like this one, starting on the main page;  As well as archived by month (found in sidebar).  Well,  Happy Frigging Valentines Day to me.  Can’t say that date will ever mean the same to me again nor that of my family. 

 As a writer I have always found great comfort in the written word.  Whether I was expressing my love, my sorrow, life’s lessons or good- bye’s; there was always comfort there in the end.  So of course I would turn to my writing yet again to deal with the devastating news I was given.  At first this act was a way for me to find peace and rest in a mind that had become so very loud with terrifying noise and To deal with my fears as to not let the family know how scared I really was.  Eventually my blogs became so much more than that.   People were actually reading them and forwarding them to others, then started responding to this public offering of these pieces of my soul.

I soon found I had a following, if I can call it that. If I didn’t write a blog in over a week, people started writing to see if I was okay.  There were those who simply wanted to say they were sorry and started praying and never stopped.  Reading their words and hearing the same helped me find the strength I needed to pull myself up out of that self imposed misery.   But the story became one and of it’s self  riding along with the words I continued to write documenting my battle with cancer.  Readers came forward to Thank me for helping them understand what might have been in the mind of their loved one or friend who lost their own fight against cancer.  Quiet a few were fighting cancer themselves, some newly diagnosed.  They said they found strength and courage in my words.  They opened their windows, climbed out of bed and learned to enjoy their  days living WITH cancer. If I could then they could. Their stories touched me beyond all others.  So as I shared my gut wrenching fears and truths in those tear filled words of mine, it was those readers that finally found some sense of peace and contentment.  They found what I myself was hoping to find.

They made me feel like I had purpose.  I had a reason.  I am a strong believer in that everything happens for a reason.  You will read that statement many times through out my blogs.  I never questioned as to the reason I was one stricken with this disease.  Never said “Why Me”.  But “Why Not Me”.  I am supposed to do something with this, because of this,  and that is where ‘purpose’ comes in.  I was no longer just a woman dying of terminal breast cancer; I had a story to tell.  Yes I have always had purpose, but lost sight of it when all I could think of was this damn cancer crawling around inside my body.  So those people who took their time to tell me how my blogs effected their life, showed me that yes perhaps I have a mission.

 I moved things around and created this site to just focus on my blogs dealing with cancer.  I have slowly been moving them into this new site.  It’s taking time to copy and edit and cover the years between 2006 and now.  In the mean time I have tried to continue writing newer blogs to keep those interested abreast of current treatments and my results.  That too has been few and far between because I did not have internet at my home for a year, then computer problems as well.  My blogs have new followers now.  I have heard from support groups, motivational speakers (whom wanted to read some of my blogs at their events) and other women who had beat breast cancer and again women who are newly diagnosed.  They are my inspiration.  Everyone! 

 From the day I was told that my entire body was riddled with cancer, from the doctors who put my hip and femur back together twice, my Cancer Team of Oncologist, Radiologist and from my awesome nurses Jan and Christine, my brave children, my loving family, my wonderful friends and from all those strangers who have become my prayer warriors; my world changed drastically and so did the way I look at it;  Eye’s wide open.  I am Angela, Come take a Colorful walk with me as I Journey through this life with terminal breast cancer.

 Come on Boots….Start Walking…

PS:  One thing that will reveal itself is how naive I was back at the beginning.   Reading through all the older blogs in the process of transferring them to this site made me realize I really did not understand what the doctors were telling me, or what some medicines were actually for, etc…  It was all new to me.  My family practitioner is the one who discovered the cancer.  I actually had to say the words myself upon diagnosis after  he tried hard for about 10 minutes.  He is such a sweet gentle man and it just broke his heart to have to tell me such devastating news.  As he stumbled over his words I finally said “It’s cancer” and he responded “yes” and came over with tears in his eyes and wrapped his arms around me in a big hug.  Well that  was his nature and with that said, he also did not want to tell me I was terminal.  He kept telling me I was going to beat it. That only contributed to my naivete.   It wasn’t until May when I saw the radiologist that he revealed the grim prognosis of about one to two years .  That visit is in one of the blogs.  If one cares to read the blogs from beginning up to today you will see the truth as it unfolds.  As my intelligence on the matter grows  (especially when I hit the books to learn everything I could), the blogs verbage goes from being almost child like to knowledgable maturity in respect to cancer facts, medications and treatments.

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