Wife and I were constantly aware that cancer was walking with us, but she never seemed to address it as a threat or enemy. I don't recall her ever attending a 'cancer survivor' walk, nor an "I survived cancer" workshop, or joining a survivor group. We moved through each phase, living as normally as possible, and expecting others to treat us as normally as possible. To the bitter end.
That leads into the Reader's Digest article. A series of quotes: ". . I found that only a small part of the cancer experience is about medicine. Most of it is about feelings, faith, losing and finding your identy, and discovering strength and flexibility you never knew you had.
"The other thing I learned is that I didn't have to take on "cancer survivor" as my identity, even though there were forces pushing me to do that.
"I felt like being a cancer survivor was taking over my life. . . . We know that the way to cope with . . (a) life changing experience(s) is to find meaning, (which) we have to decide. . . Perhaps we make one small decision that makes a big difference in our lives.
"What if we lived in a world without survivors? What if people decided to claim their trauma as an experience, rather than taking it on as their identity? It could mean the end of being trapped by our wounds and the start of defining ourselves by what we are becoming."
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