When I was 41, I found a lump the size of a grape in my right breast. I ended up bald, sick and exhausted from surgeries, chemo and radiation treatments. Ah, but I got to live.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the struggle and resilience faced during a battle with cancer, ultimately emphasizing the value of life.
Regina Brett's experience highlights the harrowing journey of dealing with a life-threatening illness. Despite the physical and emotional toll of treatments, her assertion 'Ah, but I got to live' reveals a profound appreciation for life itself. This quote serves as a reminder that even in our darkest moments, the will to survive and cherish life prevails.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a cancer awareness event to inspire hope.
When you have cancer, it's like you enter a new time zone: the Cancer Zone. Everything in the Tropic of Cancer revolves around your health or your sickness. I didn't want my whole life to revolve around cancer. Life came first; cancer came second.
Greet every morning with open arms and say thanks every night with a full heart. Each day is a precious gift to be savored and used, not left unopened and hoarded for a future that may never come.
The only gift my dad ever bought me is still in my jewelry box. It died at 10 minutes to 11 decades ago, but the gold Caravelle watch keeps my dad alive. A watch isn't about keeping time. It's about stopping it.
Before I started chemotherapy treatments, I wrote down the best advice from doctors, family, friends, books, and survivors and created an 'Owner's Manual' to help me take care of myself. It would remind me that cancer is doable.
Some people hate funerals. I find them comforting. They hit the pause button on life and remind us that it has an end. Every eulogy reminds me to deepen my dash, that place on the tombstone between our birth and our death.
Cancer is messy and scary. You throw everything at it, but don't forget to throw love at it. It turns out that might be the best weapon of all.
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
You need talent as a rider and I think I had that in my genes. But I think I also had a talent for suffering, which I thought was important, but also determination.
Trauma is not the sole province of victims. If that were true, soldiers returning from Afghanistan wouldn't suffer from PTSD.
And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they'll never stop doing, I think it's FEARLESS to stop believing them. It's FEARLESS to say "you're NOT sorry" and walk away.
You have to stand up and say, 'There's nothing wrong with me or my shape or who I am; you're the one with the problem!'
When fear makes your choices for you, no security measures on earth will keep the things you dread from finding you. But if you can avoid avoidance - if you can choose to embrace experiences out of passion, enthusiasm, and a readiness to feel whatever arises - then nothing, nothing in all this dangerous world, can keep you from being safe.
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