On The Cancer Experience

 I am not a cancer survivor. I consider myself a post cancer thriver, which may sound like a clumsy parsing of words. It isn’t to me. It is the way I choose to think about a cancer experience I had over a dozen years ago. A routine medical examination indicated that I had uterine cancer; this was unexpected to say the least , and it took a good amount of mental integration for me to take it all in. Several emotions collided within me, fear, dismay (I had just entered into a course of study at a local university), concern about the upset to my family life. I did not resist the medical solution set before me, a complete hysterectomy, and I went into “training” for it, so to speak.

It was natural to put things in order

I took care of household and family needs, which was a godsend to my fragile state of mind. I walked; I took care of myself physically, and being a believer, mostly I prayed. None of this was a particular effort to me because of the way I do things. It was natural to put things in order; it was natural to enter more deeply into the spiritual practices I engaged in daily. Before me was a deal, but I hoped to make it no bigger than it had to be. Eventually the surgery came and went and was very successful…physically, mentally and emotionally.

We are not at the mercy of events

After the experience, on my own time, I thought more carefully about the whole business. In my spiritual system, frames of thought influence our lives. We are not at the mercy of events that come and go; we participate in them and can control much of what we want to experience. Using this logic I could and did ask: Did I cause this cancer? I didn’t really know. Did I participate in some way? Very likely, but I decided not to remain in regrets around such a possible lapse in good thinking. Instead I decided to make sure my Infinite connections and thought processes were clearer than ever.

I accepted it...and moved on

I think that when threats pass through our lives, questions will always come. Did I dodge a bullet? Did I get lucky? Did God love me more than others who did not survive physically? These thoughts made no sense to me. They only created confusion when clarity was needed. Not all things resolve themselves into plain facts, and I was not going to waste time trying to find reasons for everything. Anyone who has experienced cancer of some sort casts an occasional, side-long look at the beast in the corner. We always know in a quiet place in our minds that it could come back. Not to acknowledge this is to throw fairy dust around, but no one said we needed to stare obsessively at the beast either. I think that wisdom and love would have us live our lives with as much equanimity as we can, weighing possibilities but not losing our balance either. I never claimed the cancer as “my” cancer. It was an episode like many others that was a part of my experience. It opened me, but it did not define me. It was a part of the history that added to who I am. I did not welcome it, and I did not despise it either. I accepted it…and moved on.