Diagnosis - A Deep Breath Under the Holding on for Dear Life

Teisha_soft1

I am now in the seventh year after the day I was diagnosed with Leukemia. Looking back over these years, which have included many rather severe physical experiences and a successful treatment (with a long list of potential and actual side effects), the days just after hearing the diagnosis were the hardest. Harder than treatment. Harder than side effects. Why? Because on the day of diagnosis I had not believed I would ever get cancer. Because I did not know what would come with time. The impact of hearing your diagnosis is not the same for everyone but this is how it was for me. My thoughts of what to expect were physically dire. The recognition of the fact that I was going to die came crashing in on me so severely that in a way I felt more alive then I had before. Life became a state of being that I existed in, for now. Wondering about the actual details of the end of my life used to sit quiet and low on my list of things to think about (because the time for that would come later). The first time I heard that there were other people who revered their days of the initial diagnosis as the most trying came during a "young cancer survivor" support group meeting. I remember thinking what a relief it would be to have the worst days past me. This was the beginning of a measure of hope coming from the belly during a true sort of hell. The feeling of relief during the moments of swollen glands and flagging grief was an honest blessing. A deep breath under the holding on for dear life. While it did not seem that I had yet survived my cancer experience it was self evident that I endured what I could.