Not Cancer

It seems that most things in my life either center around or drive back to the Big C. In taking a look back at journals and blog posts I realize that I have had a number of biopsies in the last couple of years (at least since I was officially diagnosed with breast cancer on February 11, 2015). They have all been negative, praise God!

While there is no feeling of relief like getting test results that confirm what you had dared to hope, that there is no cancer in your body at this time, the thought is always there. One of the biopsies on record was my nose in October. While the tests came back negative for skin cancer, the area where they biopsied my nose still has not healed. By this March I was almost convinced that it was skin cancer because it wasn't healing. In my mind I thought, "What else could it be?" But any concerns I had were put to rest two weeks ago when I had my annual PET scan. My doctor kindly called me just hours after the scan was complete to tell me it was "All clear"! I felt like I could fly hearing that report! So, as for the nose, it has to be something else because: IT'S NOT CANCER!

I have noticed an increase in my anxiety over the last several months. Not just because of the constant undercurrent of the cancer experience and concerns of recurrence, but there has been a sense of urgency deep in my heart and soul as well. It is an urgency to "get things done". I have so many goals and plans for my life and the life of my family. Often I feel that I don't have enough energy, mind space or hours in a day to accomplish all that I want or need to. I have this fear that I won't have the chance to tell all my stories or complete all my work before I die. It may sound strange coming from a forty-four year old. That fear may have been found written in my own hand as a seventeen year old as well. But the same is true today.

What I've come to realize as I contemplate this fear, this anxiety, is the remembrance that all we have is each moment. If we live this moment to the best of our ability, with all of the love, hope, passion and purpose we have within us right now, then we are truly living. I don't know about you but the energy my passion and purpose emits does ebb and flow, so there's no judgement as to the intensity of any given moment. It's just giving what I have in that moment. In this moment. It's opening myself to receive in this moment.

Just as I did not let cancer stop me from pursuing my dreams or living with passion in 2015-1016, I won't let anxiety or fear effect me in those ways now. Today, it's not cancer. So I will continue to write, learn, listen, have my cake and eat it too, and so on. I'll live life with passion and purpose. I'll press in to each moment with all that I have.