all the best!

It all began at the young age of 38—that’s when my life turned upside down. For a while anyway. Then it improved beyond belief. This is the story of my Breast Cancer Survival.

I wasn’t really prepared for the worst as I had it in my head it was only a benign cyst. It wasn’t to be and at the time it was all a blur; a bit surreal in a weird way actually. Deep down though I felt everything would work out for the better. I wasn’t sure what that meant but I had a deep reassurance. I know now it was my creator giving me the nod of comfort. I am a Christian and my faith gave me the strength to cope at a much more functional pace, I guess. However, nonetheless, I had to deal with this life changing trauma right here—right now—it wasn’t going to disappear like a bad dream. No reality set in well and truly in the days to come—tests, specialists visits, hospital visits, choices etc. etc.

One thing that really hit home was the fact that I wasn’t alone in all this—my immediate family; my husband and three teenage daughters were going through their ordeal, trying to take it all in, in their own adolescent way. They were all at different stages in their life so each one had their different needs. I was their mother still and I had to comfort them and help them. That was my desire and my duty. As for my husband—that was difficult. He wanted to comfort me but he didn’t know how to. I wanted to comfort him and couldn’t find the strength to deal with that. Yet through all of this I coped. I put on my ‘wife and mother hats’ and just coped the best way I knew how to. I chose to be strong and I felt the need to be strong as well. So off I went on my path of resurrection of my life now– right here and now.

I remember my youngest daughter, Amy asking me if I was going to die! I immediately replied, without a blink of my teary eye “No sweetie—I am going to have them get rid of this yucky tumor inside of me and make myself fit and healthy”. And that is just what happened. A lot happened in those early days which has prepared me for now. I believe God gave me a mighty powerful strength and it gets stronger every day, to cope with living with the fact I had cancer, and helping others cope with that fact too. It is my passion to help as many people now. To encourage them in any way possible to live life in a much healthier and happier way. None of us know our destiny but we can sure make life a much happier and easier environment to live in– even if it is just in our own small community. We can do this!

I would rather be positive with an attitude of ‘I can beat this—it won’t beat me’, than just fall in an emotional heap and give up. Sure I’ve had my emotional ups and downs particularly during treatment, and then about 9 months after when I had a huge emotional depression drop, but I got up again. I had to then, and I have to now every single day. Each and Every day is precious to me—BUT every day is just as precious to everyone else on this earth. There are always millions of people out there in this crazy world who are suffering much, much more than I—I am one of the lucky ones. I had my eyes opened to life and a huge reminder of how good it is! That in itself is a MASSIVE BONUS!

Here is an extract from one of my website articles of mine, which I want to share with you in the hope to encourage you to move forward … and I mean move—not crawl!

‘LIFE’ – Fun, Disaster, enjoyment, disappointment, laughter etc. etc. As different a life each one of us has from the other, we all experience many different angles to many different situations. How we deal with those completely satisfying or disastrous situations is the crucial point to the destiny of our “LIFE”!

A positive outlook on a negative situation can only make the unwanted, hard to deal with situation, much easier to resolve, not to mention, live through. A positive outlook on a positive situation can only enhance the outcome by 150% at least. Both situations end up with a much better ‘MOVE FORWARD WITH A SMILE OF CONTENTMENT’ outlook on Life.

Which leads me to the next paragraph “LAUGHTER”. This, I believe, is the Cream on Top of the whole recipe to Good Health; the essential ingredient that sits up high oozing down through all the above, flavoring, sweetening and softening all to a totally, healthy blissful life!

Laughter is the medicine that makes a healing power totally possible. The old saying ‘It takes more effort to Smile than to Frown’ only enhances the fact that a wiser person is a happier person. If you have the energy and willpower to smile and laugh through the most difficult and life stretching moments, you have the very recipe for great wisdom, strength, positive
ingenuity, and a total understanding of the meaning of LOVE, LIFE & LAUGHTER!

Take all of the above and gulp it, swallow it and completely digest it into a healthy love and life stream, which will only result in complete satisfaction of your heart. Try the Special
Recipe of Life – it really does work!

The following is also an extract from my Ebook of my Survival Story—”Cancer to Healthy Life”, which is available from my Website.

Many things in life hit you in the face “BANG”, and it can hurt—really hurt. It can also be a warm fuzzy feeling—you know “oh yeah—what a great idea—what a great way of dealing with that”. This was definitely a BANG!
Well here I am lying on my bed in
hospital with tubes and bags and things hanging off me. My eyes traveled around the four bed room—there weren’t any beds left in the cancer ward so I was placed in the surgical/mixed
illness ward. To this day I know that wasn’t purely coincidental—it was meant to happen. Why ???????????

Across from me, staring at me all day and night was a dear little old lady who was quite weak—she had her feet hanging out of the covers at the end of the bed—she had diabetes and her feet were infected with gangrene.

On the far diagonal corner bed an elderly, thick set lady greeted me with a very open friendly smile (on the surface). But it was quite obvious that not far down into her heart & soul she was reaching out for some comfort.
She was a serious asthmatic
connected to a machine most of the day. Sadly she found the time & energy each evening to toddle down to the corner store over the road with her husband to light up a dreaded cigarette. I guess they looked at it as bonding time– not life shortening time. My heart sunk at the thought that people actually did that when faced with a serious health issue like hers. Nevertheless she was a sweetheart and knew no different.

Finally, to my left (only for 2 days) was a young girl, probably around 17 years of age, who was obviously very distressed continually sobbing into her pillow, and definitely not wanting to be in a crowded room. She had miscarried and quite severely, and was being monitored for a couple of days. Besides her physical problem a more serious emotional problem lay so much deeper in her heart. It was quite obvious she
didn’t want to talk so I jotted down a small note of encouragement—’couldn’t tell you to this day what I wrote, but I felt the words flow out of me at the time. They were, I believe,
God’s words speaking through me!

“Wow”, I thought to myself,— “this is what lies beyond my four walls at home.”
Since that very eye-opening experience I have come to believe that,
this is what got me through my journey and will continue to do so for as long as I walk on this earth. Call it what you may—but I
believe God was showing me that there are always thousands or even millions of people out there who have problems so much greater than mine. That has been a huge
lifetime lesson for me.
As a child I had a very fulfilled and happy life with great parents and siblings. We all encounter trials at times but now my eyes could see that some people encounter those trials everyday. It certainly gave me, and continues to give me a new and fresh outlook on life each and every day. The phrase “Get a Life!” takes on a whole new meaning for me now.
So,—I did exactly that—
I got a life—a whole new one !!!!!!!!!