SO MANY PEOPLE ARE LIVING LONGER, productive lives in spite of their cancer diagnosis. I am sharing these stories to inspire all of us to live each and every day to the fullest.
Metastasized breast cancer is the diagnosis that FA received in the beginning of 2019. “At my first appointment to talk about my biopsy results, nobody wanted to give me an ‘educated’ prognosis, as any prognosis at that point would have been premature. We all agreed to take this one step at a time,” she recalls. When she began internet surfing for information, she was reminded by her physicians of the reliability variations and outdated statistics that she was reading. Oncology science is rapidly moving forward, which offers a myriad of options and decisions for patients. This means that the information is always changing.
The adjustment to her diagnosis was difficult for FA; however, she soon realized that she just needed to take it step by step and rely on her own capability to deal with what was going on. She describes her diagnosis as elusive and difficult when trying to wrap her head around it. “Not planning serves well,” she soon realized. “Long ago I knew I would age and eventually have to appropriately edit my life; however, with the cancer diagnosis along with being confined by COVID, I have lost the communicative organizational thread,” she admits.
She still has hope that her new normal has room for improvement. She reminds herself that a day can still hold many tiny, quiet surprises. “Learning things I never wanted to know can still be rewarding,” she says. FA has come to the realization of how many grand and lovely people surround us. She admits to never trusting doctors without proof of their art; however, she now realizes that in addition to their specialty, physicians have the responsibility of making good decisions for their patients.
“I am still alive!” she exclaims. In her remaining time she has decided that she has nothing to prove and focuses on paying it forward through kindness and sharing. “Life is difficult, doing a good job is difficult; however, both are well worth the effort,” she says. What a great reminder for us all!
Jean Schoen is the founder and president of Cancer Connection of Northwest Ohio, Inc. (419-725-1100).
