I'm a Survivor

(yeah, I was thinking about the song when I wrote that title, you can hum it, it's cool :D)

Today, I woke up happy, I meditated on liberation in the morning which made me happier.

I bought "Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips" and skimmed some of that book today that book suggested 3 things that resonated with me:
1. I should be doing what I want every day
2. I get to define what "Survivor" means to me/for me
3. Go to a place that makes you happy and calm when you need a break

So because of 1 and 3, I took a lunch break and went to the National Arboretum, which is this beautiful garden one of the secret gems of DC. When I go there it makes me think about nature and life. Humans think that we aren't part of nature but just like every other being we live and we die - in order to live, we must also die. So no matter what I believe in - reincarnation, heaven/hell, that there is nothing after death, I am still going to die - just like birds, flowers, roaches, dolphins. So I'm going to die, since I can't stop that the thing that I CAN control is how I live,I can't even control how I die, only how I live.

So I decided to define Survivor in a different way, for me.

Survivor - someone who has faced their scariest nightmare and became kinder, wiser and stronger for it. Someone who faces death and decides how they are going to live life - be it taking every medication and procedure known to man, or deciding to live life procedure free.

Today a colleague (SAS) who I don't know called me during my lunch break ranting about a customer's case despite the fact I told her I was at lunch and didn't have a computer with me. I got off the phone chuckling thinking, how unimportant that conversation was. 2 minutes later I get a call from the hospital telling me that my insurance didn't approve my next pet scan. Is that not totally ironic? There are problems and there are Problems. Too funny
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I'm so glad I've decided not to do maintenance chemo and I'll probably repeat that again and again. I'm glad I'm not continuing to destroy the rest of my body, just to kill off a mutation. hmm isn't that funny, me the sci-fi/fantasy junkie who kinda wished to be an X-man, when I was younger (Rogue, of course), am now a mutant!

Do I think I'll die from puffler's? Probably, but I don't know for sure, until then I know there will be ups and downs. I'm still getting queasy in the afternoons, I'm still feeling a little pain when I breathe deep and I'm coughing some but today was a good day an up and I'm going to revel in the ups.

On Saturday my friend/colleague was in town and she gave me this article about optimism and how people despite the odds believe that the future will be positive - the take the negative and make it lemonade in order to survive. I believe that a positive mind can help, but... as I was telling my friends earlier today - don't you wish you can take a pill or just command yourself to be happy and instantly you are? ahhh the quick fix, I'm so American :)