It’s incredibly hard to believe that it’s been 20 years this summer since I began my second cancer journey. The pictures above are from about 20 years ago if you can believe it.
When I think back on all that happened back then and since I can hardly believe it. Apparently it’s all hard to believe!
I have mentioned bits and pieces of this part of my health journey before but I want to share a bit more here.
It was 10 years almost to the day to when I had started my first cancer whirlwind with a biopsy, tests and treatment to the day I had my surgery for the second go around.
Just like the first time I found the lump just inside my collarbone and almost immediately knew in my heart what it actually meant. The second time I saw the lumps in my neck grow.
Neither time was the doctor’s proclamation about my reality really a surprise. I instinctively knew it in my heart.
I really believe that was God preparing me for what was about to happen. The roller-coaster about to begin.
On one hand I could say that the past 20 years had flown by and on the other hand I could say that my year battling my way through thyroid cancer was only yesterday. I am sure you could say the same thing about something in your life too. What was many years ago can seem just like yesterday.
What I will say about has happened in those 20 years has been life changing. A diagnosis of cancer will always change your life. It can really feel like being in a pinball machine. You can just be merrily rolling along in one direction and BOOM get shot in another direction completely opposite of where you were going. And shot in that new direction at full speed just trying to catch up to figure everything out.
My experience was with cancer but your experience would be with something completely different than that. My life is not your life, but we can take examples or lessons from other people for sure.
I can look back on where I was 20 years ago and how I still had my thyroid and how my life was then and stay in a state of grief. Grief for how I am no longer that person or how the next year of my life was incredibly difficult. Grief that I went through that. Grief that I have permanent health issues I have to manage and continually keep stable for the rest of my life. I could stay in a state of grief, but I won’t. I don’t.
Why not? Because I choose not to. I chose to work through the difficulty and grief at that time and move forward. Yes friend, it’s here again. That sneaky little part of almost all of my posts. Choice.
You have a choice like I had a choice. Are you going to choose joy? Choose to work through difficulty and not stay stuck?
I have written about how I choose not to make the label I wear most often the one of someone who has journeyed through cancer. Some people have known me for years before they learn of my cancer battles. I talk more about this here.
I could sit here and be upset and keep wishing that the past 20 years hasn’t happened and that I could just go back to how things were before. Oh friend, there are days that I wish that more than anything. But I know that who I am today is because of the past 20 years and 30 years of tackling cancer and the aftermath of all of that for me.
I am who I am today because of what I have been through not in spite of what I have been through. So while I still find it hard to believe that 20 years has past I still remember what I have been through and how with my faith it has propelled me forward.
I am proud that as I look back on the years since the most difficult physical, mental and spiritual battles I have faced, I can see just how far I have come. I remember the darkness, the pain and I still see the scars from it all. But I know I wouldn’t trade the past 20 or 30 years to not have gone through these things at all.
So friend as you look back on your life, and you come to anniversaries and dates of things you have come through and successfully weathered the storms of, I pray you will see just how far you have come, just how much stronger you are. Just how much you have learned through all of the things you have been through.
I pray that as you continue to move forward, you will keep looking forward, keep learning, keep choosing joy despite circumstances and keep aiming higher.
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Melodee Glassford 