Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul (3 page)

During this very challenging time in my life battling cancer,I truly appreciate being able to turn to
Chicken Soup for the Soul
for strength and peace.

Paul

Why This Book?

In January 1995, Nancy and Patty’s mother, Linda Mitchell, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Because we have been writing and compiling
Chicken Soup for the Soul
books for the last five years, she suggested that we compile a book with stories from those who have been touched by cancer. At first, the project took off very slowly and we wondered if we would ever complete it. As cancer survivors and their family members began sending us stories of their experiences, and our reading and research on cancer continued, we realized we would finish it and that it would be a great book. But we also realized something else.

When the idea of this book was born, it was about surviving cancer, but as it took shape, we realized that it was really a book about life. In fact, eight million cancer survivors out there have discovered things about life that most of the rest of us have not yet learned. As we continued working on the book, we realized that each story was teaching us what was really important in life. As a result, we deepened our appreciation for the simple things in life—watching the changing hues and colors of the morning sunrise, taking a walk along the beach, listening to music, drinking a glass of fresh squeezed fruit juice, playing with our children and hugging our loved ones. Our families and the love we all share with each other became more and more important to all of us.

At least once a day we sit back and say, “We are so lucky.” Because of this book we are not the same people we were. Our priorities are clearer now. We share our feelings more openly, we take our vitamins and herbs more regularly, we eat better, we meditate and do yoga more often, we pray with more conviction and we love with more openness. Our daily disciplines are stronger, our co–dependent behaviors are weaker and our desires to follow our own inner directives are stronger. We laugh more often, take more time for play, worry less about pleasing others and know more clearly than ever that each day is a treasured gift to be lived to the fullest.

Chicken Soup for the Soul
reawakened me to the fact that life is really too short to hide, it’s meant to be lived!

Rita Valdez

We thank all of you who have been challenged by cancer because your struggles and insights have deepened our own understandings about life, love and spirituality. We also trust that readers will have the same experience we had as we created this book. We know from sharing the first drafts of this book with many cancer patients, survivors, family members and caregivers that this book will comfort, aid and inspire all who have been confronted with this challenge. It is also our hope that this book will be a wake-up call for those of you who don’t have cancer—we hope that it will give you some of the insights without having to personally go through the struggles.

And to those of you who are currently battling cancer, we invite you to let these stories touch you to the depths of your soul and give you the faith, hope and courage to fight and to win because others have come before you and done so. May their stories light your way through the dark nights. We send you our love and our blessings and the love and blessings of all the people who participated in this project. They all care...and they know what you are facing and what is possible.

Share These Stories with Others

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this
light.

Albert Schweitzer

Some of the stories you read will move you to share them with someone else—another patient, survivor, family member, friend or caregiver. When that happens, take the time to call or visit and share the story with that individual. We promise you that you will get something even deeper for yourself from sharing the stories with others.

How to Read This Book

One reader of the first
Chicken Soup for the Soul
book wrote us that she read the book in one sitting of four hours and in that time totally released all the flu symptoms she had! We know that reading this book can affect your immune system. Pretty amazing!

Actually, we don’t recommend you read the book all in one sitting. Take your time. Enjoy it. Savor it. Engage each of the stories with your whole being. Reading a book like this is a little like sitting down to eat a meal of all desserts. It may be a little too rich to digest all at once. Take time to experience the story’s effect. Listen to the words in your heart as well as your mind. Let each story touch you. Ask yourself,
What does it awaken in me? What does it suggest for my life? What feeling or action does it call forth from my inner being?
We encourage you to have a personal relationship with every story.

Some stories will speak louder to you than others. Some will have deeper meaning. Some will make you laugh; some will make you cry. Some will give you a warm feeling all over; some may hit you right between the eyes. There is no right reaction; there is only your reaction. Let it happen and let it be.

1
ON HOPE

H
oping means seeing that the outcome you want is possible, and then working for it.

Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.

What Cancer Cannot Do

Cancer is so limited—

It cannot cripple love
It cannot shatter hope
It cannot corrode faith
It cannot destroy peace
It cannot kill friendship
It cannot suppress memories
It cannot silence courage
It cannot invade the soul
It cannot steal eternal life
It cannot conquer the spirit.

Source Unknown

The Soul Menders

During the first months following my cancer diagnosis, I wouldn’t acknowledge any kind of healing but physical healing. I wasn’t interested in techniques that could help me cope better or extend my life expectancy by a few months; mere remission or “quality of life” didn’t capture my attention either. Full recovery was the only option I would accept, and I was willing to do anything and go anywhere to achieve it.

When my surgeries and radiation treatments were over, I found myself in that frightening twilight zone of life after treatment. The doctors had done all they could and I was on my own to wonder if I’d be alive or dead by the following year. For the sake of my sanity, I tried hard to convince myself and anyone else who would listen that I was doing just fine and that cancer was no death sentence. My motto became, “I don’t write off cancer patients.” I was ferocious and flailing.

Only two weeks earlier, my lover and I had parted ways. I felt confused and frightened about the future. Alone in bed at night, I looked at the white walls and wondered who would want a 39-year-old cancer patient. Life in my apartment was dismally quiet. Then, Flora entered my life—a skinny feral kitten about four weeks old, full of ringworms, fleas and ear mites. Shivering and alone under the wheel well of my parked car, Flora looked desperately sick. I grabbed hold of her scraggly tail and tugged. Within seconds my hand was scratched to shreds, but I hung on and brought her hissing and complaining to my apartment. At that point, I realized that my lonely life welcomed the commotion of a tiny, angry kitten who would distract me from my own depressing thoughts.

With the arrival of the kitten, I pulled my energy away from myself and my fretful imaginings and concentrated on healing Flora. Along with ringworms and fleas, she had a terrible viral infection that had ulcerated her tongue, cheeks and throat. I knew all about ulcers in the mouth, so I sympathized wholeheartedly with this miserable condition. It took weeks, but slowly Flora healed, and along the way we bonded. Soon, she was a loving, trusting ball of black-and-white fuzz who met me at my door each evening when I returned from work. The loneliness of my apartment vanished, and I cherished the success of our health venture
together.
Although my own future looked uncertain, success with Flora was something I could achieve.

Only weeks after I’d finally nursed Flora back to some resemblance of healthy kittenhood, she was diagnosed with feline leukemia. Cancer. Her veterinarian gave her the same sorry prognosis my oncologist had given me: Flora would most likely die within a year or two. My response was instant and unconscious. As soon as Flora’s vet handed down the diagnosis, I wrote her off as a lost cause. Quickly, my emotional attachment to her ceased as I began protecting myself from the pain of her death, which I knew would come. The veterinarian told me Flora would die and I simply accepted this. I stopped speaking and playing with Flora because when I did, I ended up sobbing hysterically for my kitten. I even found it difficult to look at her. But Flora simply wouldn’t let me pull away. When I’d walk past her, she’d chase after me. Her paw touched my cheek hesitantly each night as she curled up next to me in bed, her purr resonant and strong. If my mood was chilly, she seemed not to notice. Flora did what cats do best: she waited and watched.

Her patience finally won out. One night I had an “AHA!” experience about my attitude toward Flora. How could I believe my own cancer wasn’t a death sentence when I couldn’t see the same hope for her? How could I dismiss any being without dismissing myself? Although I was busy blathering about hope and healing, I knew that I honestly saw myself in the grave.

That realization was a profound turning point for me. While slow in coming, it finally hit me like a downpour of hailstones. How often in my life had I turned away from pain and loss, and from honest feelings? Living at “half–life,” I’d put away emotion at the first inkling of loss, and nearly lost myself in the process.

One night shortly after my awakening, I lit a candle for Flora and myself. We sat together looking at the flame, and I vowed to Flora that I would love her with wild abandon for as long as she was with me because loving her felt so good. In loving Flora, I knew I would find a way to love myself as well—poor diagnosis and all. For the both of us, each day of life would be a day we could celebrate together.

I began a quest to heal Flora that included many of the same gems of complementary medicine I attempted on myself. Flora got acupressure, vitamins, homeopathy, music and color therapy, detoxifying baths and unlimited quantities of hugs, love and affection. Her water bowl had tiny, colorful crystals in it. Her collar was a healing green.

Most important in this process, though, was the attitude change I experienced from this “mumbo jumbo,” as some of my bewildered friends called it. Healing stopped being so painfully heavy. It became fun, even silly. When I told my friends I might have my house visited by dowsers to seek out and correct “bad energy vibrations,” I damn well had to have a highly developed sense of humor!

Over the next few months, I slowly learned that healing is more than heroics over illness. Healing isn’t simply an end result; it’s a process. Flora helped me reclaim the joy that had died after my cancer treatment and my previous relationship ended. She brought me tremendous peace with her quiet, trusting presence. Finally, as I saw Flora healed, loved and cherished, I knew I honestly held the same hopeful vision for myself.

Flora is sleek, happy and seven years old today. Her last three tests for leukemia have been negative. At the time of my “AHA!” with Flora, I felt that she was an angel sent to teach me that turning away from love accomplishes nothing.

Susan Chernak McElroy

From on Chemo to on Camera

Faith, Hope, Love.
You need all of the above.
If you want to live, then you’ve got to be positive.
There’s a rumor I got a tumor.
I used to be a dancer, but then I got cancer.
I used to have hair all down my back,
but now it’s even shorter than Kojak.
But that is all right,
cuz I’m gonna win the fight.

These are some of the lyrics to my “cancer rap song.” I wrote it when I found out in March 1989, at age 18, that I had bone cancer. After almost two years of chemotherapy and eight major operations, including an amputation of my left leg above the knee, six tumors later, I am thankful to say I am clean!

I don’t wish cancer on anyone, but I don’t ever want to forget what I went through. The physical and emotional pain taught me to really love life with a passion. Suffering produces perseverance, character and hope.

I had quite a bit of fun, too, at the hospital while on chemo. Other patients and I (those who were up to it) gathered for little daily parties while having our chemo or hydration. I remember walking around the hospital with no hair, chopsticks stuck up my nose and in my ears, just to get a reaction from unsuspecting people. Nothing felt better to me than making others laugh and forgetting the pain for a while. I feel that God has used my situation and experience to help others.

This passion to entertain also led me to a career. Before cancer, I was a dancer on
Soul Train.
When I was diagnosed, my doctors told me I would never dance again. I fooled them—I still dance, and with a lot of soul. Two years ago, I started taking acting classes. Southern California, where I live, is where most of the entertainment industry is located. I put off going on my first audition because I didn’t want to mess up. Would you believe that when I finally went, I not only got the part, but a lead role on a big show?
Northern Exposure!
They were two of the best weeks of my life. I played a character, Kim Greer, who is training for a wheelchair race in Cicely, Alaska, and gets a sprained elbow. Maggie (Janine Turner) introduces me to Ed (Darren Burrows) so he can try to heal me with native shaman ways.