This is just a portrait. It is of my friend Melinda who just finished her treatment a couple of weeks ago. I think she looks fabulous. A long time ago I spoke about breast cancer art. Not just the work of the SCAR project but other art as well. Like this portrait of Melinda. Strength and living. The realization of better days ahead, treatment behind.
When we celebrate ourselves and our sisters on this journey, we need to look up and be positive. We are, after all, alive.
Melinda and I spent the day together yesterday junking, antiquing, and barn picking…and being completely and irreverently and unrepentantly sarcastic. And I did not even think about it until she was leaving and she turned to me and said with a laugh “Do you realize we went through the whole day and did not say ‘cancer’ once?”
It’s true. And considering we were two hot flashing survivors wandering around Chester County, PA that was pretty damn cool.
Melinda is one of the friends breast cancer has brought into my life. So see? In the midst of all the negatives exist the positives.
Happy Monday all. On Wednesday November 13, please say a pray in remembrance of my father. He has been gone 8 years. I feel like I have lived a few lifetimes since then.
ihavebreastcancerblog 
I know you do not like to take credit for this, but too bad, because you should–you literally saved my life. Way back when…. I was in despair, at the end of the rope, and looking for a way out that would cause the least amount of pain for myself and my family. I did not want to deal with breast cancer. I googled, ‘breast cancer Philadelphia’ (someone someone close to you in radius means more than someone 2,000 miles away). I found your blog, and I read it from first to last post over a period of a few days and I did not want it to end. It was only then, that I had some hope….some kind of vision for something beyond the day.
Healthy people have no idea what it is like to have been dealt a hand with cancer. That is why it is so important to talk about it, share it, and to keep it in the forefront; not for sympathy sake, but because it is a life changing experience that people are not prepared for. Not everyone survives.
You become an entirely different person. You can always choose to move, divorce, change careers, go back to school (or go for the first time)…but you can’t change cancer. You can’t. You simply have no control over what has happened. People do not understand this–they do not want to understand because it’s not happening to them. It is everyone’s worst fear. So what do you do when you do when this happens to you…seek out others who are thriving.
I can’t thank you enough Carla. I had planned to retire to my bed, and not eat or drink until I was gone.. That is when I found your blog. Today, I am OK. I survived surgery, chemo, and radiation but the most painful thing I think is to not know every truly know if you will survive cancer. We may be OK for a month, a year, 10 ten years, 30 years. We cannot ever know if it is truly gone, if it will come back, and when. You can never truly know if one of us will throw a clot due to cancer meds… This is something else that people do not understand and do not want to understand (it as though cancer were a contagious virus…). It’s a life you never stop living. So, I can understand your dismay when people point fingers at your talking about having dealt with and living with a cancer diagnosis.
So our first day together was great fun!!! Full of junk, complaining, mocking, eating beans, and just being people. As much as I do not want to be defined by cancer , I sometimes want to be. I m am looking forward to more days like the one we shared ! Thanks for accepting me for who I am! Life has a way of bringing people together…synchronicity …randomness, ….whatever people want to assign it–it sure is lovely!
My life is better because of you.
Love,
Melinda
Ok, I am totally crying drat you. You are one of the many serendipities that I have experienced since breast cancer entered my life. xoxo right back at you. You are stuck with me now LOL
I was fighting against a stage IV cancer and i won, lucky my husband who helped me all the time.I think it is very important that family support to win, because i was very weak;really helped me participate in one group of victims of cancer, so my mood improved, also helped me a adviser of advisercancer-diseases.com(they are doctors).I recomended not surrender, because sometimes the first treatment does not work as me, and change doctors if it is necessary.Read positive thinking books gave me more energy.During my cancer,i changed my diet,now i eat vegetarian organic food(now i not eat meat).I think is a set of things that help me.
Xoxo
Wendy