Starting a New Year Living with Cancer

Though I am glad that my chemo treatments and ovarian cancer surgery went so well, I have to accept that I will never be completely "healed" from cancer. The fact is that most cancer just goes into remission and may return at some point (recurrence). Ovarian cancer is particularly known for cycles of remission and recurrence, especially when you are not diagnosed until it has progressed to a later stage. By the time we discovered that I had ovarian cancer, I was at Stage 3c which means that though it had not yet invaded other organs, cancer cells covered all my organs in my entire abdomen. Most of this cancer was destroyed by the chemo treatments, then all visible cancer was removed during the surgery, but microscopic cancer cells still exist within me which could possibly grow in some other part of my body.

How I'm Feeling Today about my Chronic Illness

Right now I am down again. I went from walking three miles one afternoon to barely being able to get out of bed the next morning. It looks like my surgery last summer needed more recovery time than I allowed. With low adrenal function, crashes are a part of life. 

My health challenges have encouraged me to develop my writing gifts, helped my husband and me learn to work together, freed me from old negative family traditions, and has helped me to focus more on spiritual things. I'm grateful that the Lord has given me the experiences on this earth that I need to learn and grow and become a better person.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/images/category/president-thomas-s-monson-picture-quotes?lang=eng&start=1&end=40&order=

Blessings in Disguise

https://www.lds.org/media-library/images/category/trials-and-adversity-mormonads?lang=eng

I like this poster. Our adversity, is often just blessing in disguise. 

Looking back, I can see that my life has been filled with many blessings in disguise. Of course they didn't seem like "blessings" at all when I was experiencing them. How could I have known that having poor health with lots of allergies was really an opportunity to break with some dysfunctional family traditions, would help me learn to be more assertive and compassionate, strengthen my marriage, help me spend more time with my children and help them become more capable adults, and give me many opportunities for service.

This last year there have been many obvious blessing such as knowing we should move to the St George area to help improve my health, and finding a new home there in just four days. Far less obvious was the blessing of being felt alone in our new home for a month to unpack and get settled. I gained a lot of confidence in my abilities. It got me back up on my feet after being bedridden for so many years. During this time there were other blessings. One was that the city asphalted the road in front of our home. Our old neighbors had moved to the St George area a few years before and were now our neighbors again. They took me in for the day which gave me the support I needed at that time. Also, I really smacked my index finger trying to put furniture together which led to my finding a new doctor in the area.