Surviving cancer teaches us emotional resilience, making even a frightening pandemic something we can decide we can navigate.
PUBLISHED MAY 03, 2020
Felicia Mitchell is a poet and writer who makes her home in southwestern Virginia, where she teaches at Emory & Henry College. She was diagnosed with Stage 2b HER2-positive breast cancer in 2010. Website: www.feliciamitchell.net
Surviving cancer teaches you emotional resilience. Once you have received and navigated a scary diagnosis from tests to treatment, and recovery from treatment, your ability to handle ordinary challenges goes up several notches.
It is thus with great surprise that I found myself thrown for a loop by anxiety over the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). I say this as somebody who has survived many things, from some mysterious childhood malady that was likely viral meningitis to cancer. I say this as the little girl who, when she briefly lost the ability to walk, illustrated her new way of getting around by scooting on the floor on her bottom, strong arms her oars.
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