AFTERWARDS - Living to Fight Another Day

There are times when I look at my scars and tell myself I’ll never wear a Bikini again. Any feeling I have about this lasts about 20 seconds.

I am aware that I am one of the lucky ones…I survived. In fact, I thrived.

No one could have told me I would be greeting the Millennium facing an operation for a Tumour. 

No one could have told me that 5 years later I would be a Widow or that a year after that I would be living a very different life yet again.

I believe in faith, hope and love. Destiny I’m not so sure about but life is what happens to you when you are busy making plans in some of John Lennon’s immortal words.

Most people I know seem to spend some time thinking about their purpose in life and join in the search for meaning of some sort to explain their existence.

I think about how carefree life was B.C. – before Cancer and how different life became forever more A.C. – after Cancer. I wrote about this once.

I decided to accept the advice of my doctor’s and get treatment. Had I not, I may not have been here today.

In fact, a couple of years ago I was outraged by the media talk about how some people are deciding not to have treatment or do not want to have scars (physical and/or emotional). Herein lies a lot of potential bad choices about something every one of us needs to make informed decisions about.

I personally would not suggest either mainstream media 'talking heads' reading their talking points or the Internet for serious and potentially life altering decisions.

I have a blue dot between my Breasts. It looks like a dot. Someone looking at it might think a tattoo or a spot made with indelible ink. It was a marker for radiation positioning. I am glad it was put on my chest.

Subliminally I realize it is one of the steps others took to make it possible for me to survive. It is a war scar, a battle scar perhaps. Without it, I might be dead a long time now.

I try to not assume my choices are the best ones for someone else. Experience has taught me to see beyond the surface more often than I did in the past.

Often now, I tend to suspect that my fellow man is usually not someone who wears their hardship on their sleeves or looks any different from anyone else. I do this now because often unexpectedly someone tells me their story and I am humbled and stunned that they overcame so much and smile and are moving forward into the future.

Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem IF to illustrate what life might throw at us and challenge us with.* The poem Invictus ends by stating I am the captain of my fate: I am the master of my soul.**

Both poems challenge us to overcome the obstacles that life might throw at us, to live our lives with courage and integrity.

If we are very lucky, before our life is over we also may have learned sympathy, compassion, forgiveness and charity towards those around us and learned what was important.

I’d rather be known for having Integrity than for almost anything else. What would you like to be known for during your life and afterwards?

*IF – by Rudyard Kipling, a poem written in 1895, published in 1910. **Invictus – a poem written in 1875 and published in 1888 by William Ernest Henley.


See also: April 7, 2013 - B.C. - BEFORE CANCER and A.C. - AFTER CANCER and 
January 18, 2015 - SURVIVAL SKILLS