My Fight with Breast Cancer

Since coming home from Atlanta, I’ve been feeling like my batteries have been recharged.  I feel pretty good!  Whatever it is, something is going right because I look good and I feel strong (for a cancer patient, that is). 

Dr. N even noticed.  Today I had an appointment with him.  While my parents and I listened, Dr. N made comments about how well my blood counts looked.  He looked over the questionaire that I had filled out before our meeting and noted that, aside from the nasty hot flashes and after-chemo-pain, I have been coping very well with my treatment. 

He then paused and took a step back to get a good look at me, like an artist admiring his painting.  He turned to my parents and told them with pride, “Karen is a fighter.  She’s just like Hillary Swank in that movie ‘Million Dollar Baby.’”

I could tell Dr. N hadn’t seen the movie, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Hillary Swank’s character spends the last third of the movie trying to kill herself after becoming a quadrapalegic from fighting.  This is because I knew what Dr. N was saying.  I know what he meant.  He was talking about the way Hillary Swank’s character was before the accident. 

With cancer, you have to be a fighter.  In the first part of the movie, Hillary Swank gives everything she has–mind, body and soul–to be a prize fighter.  There is no other way for her.  She stops at nothing.  There is no telling her “no” because she doesn’t accept any “no’s”. 

I have to be this way.  I cannot be accepting when cancer tells me “no”.  Each chemo is another round in the ring with cancer.  Each scan is a sparring match.  I get weary; sometimes I get knocked down.  But, I always get my tired, puffy, bruised body back up and fight some more. 

Muhammad Ali–The Greatest– once said, “Champions are not made in gyms.  Champions are made from something deep inside them–a desire, a dream, a vision.  They have to have last minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will.  But the Will must be stronger than the Skill.”

I may not be The Greatest, but I do have a strong will.  I know that as a contender, Cancer is a worthy adversary.  But, cancer is not stronger than me.  Cancer is testing my Will, but it will not knock me out of this fight!