Surviving Life

Due to Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I have a lot on my mind....

I am nearing my five-year anniversary of being diagnosed with breast cancer. I am extremely proud of this achievement. I can't say I almost died, because I honestly can't ever remember thinking that it was an option. I have two beautiful daughters that need a Mom, so I wasn't going anywhere. I was too stubborn to consider it a possibility. I probably would've gone ballistic on a doctor if they tried to tell me something like, "You have 3 months to live." This leads me to my first point:

Why do doctors think it’s alright to tell someone how long they think they'll live?
They don't know.
There is no possible way another human being, even a doctor, could know such a thing.
I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.

I firmly believe that many people have died because a doctor was arrogant enough to give a timeline to that person. If someone says to a sick person that they are expected to be dead in 3 months, then the odds of that person being dead in 3 months just went up 25% (ok, I am making up these figures, but you totally get my point). It makes me mad.

Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, someone like me would have stuck it out just to prove that arrogant bastard wrong. Ha!

The next thing on my mind is that I firmly believe that how you live your life has a lot to do with illness. I’m not talking about smoking and lung cancer or anything like that. This goes deeper.
Something I can’t actually prove.

I often wonder if people that are diagnosed at a similar age as I was, can look back on their life and say, "This was the cause." I believe I can. I was in a bad marriage; it was stressful from day-one. We weren't good to each other, and then, in an effort to get away, I left for a year and a half.

I don't know what was worse... living in that unhealthy marriage, or being an unemployed, single parent, stressing constantly about money, a place to live, trying to fix my marriage for my children's sake, and so on.

Finally, we reached an agreement and the girls and I moved back to Spain with him. Of course, things did not get any better as long as we were living there. I was there for my kids and that was it. But, once we moved back to the states, things were great for a year. My 30th year was honestly the best year of my life. We had a house, our marriage seemed to have improved, and it was like starting brand new. The pressure was off. The stress had left the building.

One year later, I was diagnosed with cancer.

All of that stress in my life over the course of several years had built up, and once the stress was gone, my body reacted with cancer.

Before you think I'm completely off my rocker, let me try to explain in a different way.

When I was in the Navy, we often heard that when a Chief runs Maintenance Control (high-stress position) for several years, then retires, they very often die within 5 years, from either a heart attack or stroke. This is because their body has lived and dealt with such a high-stress environment for so long, that once the stress was no longer there, their body couldn't adjust and it is what ultimately kills them. I believe that my cancer was caused by a similar situation. My body dealt with stress and negativity for so long, that when life became less stressful, then that is how my body reacted.

This is just my theory.

Finally, this leads me to my next point.
This is for all you religious people.

I do believe in God. I am not at all good about going to church, but I do have my own beliefs. I don't know about what God really thinks about divorce because I've never had the opportunity to ask him (I have a whole list of questions for that interview, if it ever comes up!).

I do believe that God gave us our lives to live as well as we can, with the time we have. I also believe that as his children, God loves us unconditionally. Because of this love, even if he does not agree with divorce, he still wants us to be happy with ourselves.

That being said, my other theory is that because my marriage was so unhealthy to both myself and my ex, and ultimately, our children, then God gave me cancer to force me to finally have the courage to take the final step and leave for good. For ten years, we were bad for each other. I was on anti-depressants for a lot of the marriage.

I went from being an outgoing person, that was usually the center of attention without even trying, to being told to shut up in front of my friends and told that I was always wrong, to becoming an introvert that actually goes out of her way to avoid being in the limelight.

But, I thought that being there would be best for my kids. They needed a Mom and a Dad. I thought they needed us to be in the same house, with the dog and the white picket fence. Cancer arrived, and the way that each of us reacted to the news said a lot about our personalities. I won’t go into detail, but it didn’t go well for our marriage.

The fighting, the arguments, the hurt feelings…
It became much worse that it was when we lived in Spain.

So, one day, I woke up and refused to continue. I never would’ve had the courage to walk away if I had never been diagnosed with cancer. Just like an addict, I had to hit “rock bottom” before I would make the necessary changes. It was hard to do. I was so afraid. I had no idea where I would go or what I would do. The only thing I knew was that I might survive cancer, but there was no way I was going to survive this marriage. I had to leave.

I’m grateful for the new life that I’ve found, and since he is now remarried, I can only assume he’s grateful as well. If God had not loved me enough to give me cancer, and the will to fight it… and the courage to walk away… who knows where I would be today.

I guess that makes me a survivor in more than one way.