- Receive cancer diagnosis and location ✓
- Get told it’s aggressive and growing quickly ✓
- Have added pressure of a cystic component to the recipe ✓
- Have numerous sometimes painful procedures to see if its on the move ✓
- Get the unbelievably brilliant news that they can’t see its footprints on any soft organ or hard bone. Yet. ✓
- Meet your consultant oncologist and wig advisor within two hours ✓
- Get chemo ready within 5 days ✓
- Get to say what the f*** you want to those who have hurt you, hated you, criticized you, judged you, misunderstood you and never bothered to look outside of their own frame of reference ✓
Dear (insert your name here),
Even with a disease ridden right breast I am more beautiful and congruent on the inside than you’ll ever be. I am stronger and more powerful now. This is because all of your negative energy has actually had a very positive effect on my personal development. I used to reflect on myself, examine parts of me I presume you didn’t like, respect or enjoy being around. Then I stopped doing that and realized this is your stuff not mine. Your vulnerabilities and insecurities – not mine. Your negative force. Not mine. So, without you knowing, I withdrew from this, took back personal responsibility for myself and along with that came control. What you thought and what you said stopped mattering. Even in these darkest hours I still have no use for you and what you think.
This process was short with many of you, and a little lengthier with a few more. With cancer comes a sense of what I can only describe as freedom. Freedom to detach from your body, your thinking, your relationships and your life. You get the chance (and I’m sure continue) to do some deep work on yourself and you realize pretty damn quickly who matters.
And you don’t.
I do not wish cancer and its companions on you or anyone else. But what I do hope is you find the courage you so obviously lack to peel back the layers and do something effective with what you find. It’s worth the hard work and the tears.
Heidi