No one person’s journey is the same as another’s. But that means that we always have something to learn.
By Joan Lunden
Some people don’t like to call cancer “a journey.” I’ve heard it again and again. “Stop calling my battle with cancer a journey, I’m not traveling through Europe!” Well, for me, a journey was exactly what it was. It was long, it was difficult, it was life-changing and I experienced profound personal development. By definition, I had quite a journey.
Before I heard those three words, “you have cancer,” I would say I defined myself as many things, one being a journalist. A gatherer of information, a curious disseminator, a truth-seeker. Over the years I had done many interviews with breast cancer experts and I had reported on the statistics - I had heard that “a woman born today has about a 1 in 8 chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer at some time during her life,” but for me, I didn’t have breast cancer in my family and quite honestly, I think I felt like “it wouldn’t happen to me.”
Then the day came when it DID happen to me. Those three scary words came my way and I was hit like a freight train. Immediately, everything that was once my normal life was instantly washed away. I had cancer. I was still in shock and I had to figure out how I was going to tell my family.
No comments:
Post a Comment