In my moments of self-involved fear (which believe me, I have plenty), sadness, and anger, when I know with a deep conviction that I will die from my cancer- unless I am killed in a car accident or something else before then (I do watch a ton of ID)- I try to calm myself down by remembering that I am but one person on a planet circling a star, along with billions of other people, in a universe that includes an untold number of planets and stars. My one human life in its infinitesimal smallness and my experiences from that life seemingly matter little when juxtaposed against the lengthy history and hopefully lengthier future of my species and even less against the vastness of time and space. Billions of people have come before me, and billions will come after me (I hope); they too have known and will know the same joys and pains that I have known; we are linked together through the millennia by our common humanity and our shared understanding of the human experience (which is fascinating by the way). Though technology may have evolved, there is something universal, fundamental, and timeless in the feelings we experience as we look upon the innocence of a child or witness the agonizing death of another human being. Yes, there is of course evil in this world. And yet, I have faith in the overall goodness of humanity, as flawed and imperfect as we are, of our incredible potential, for we are capable of such ingenuity, intelligence, creativity, compassion, love, and wisdom. Even as I fear that our darker qualities may lead us to our own self-destruction, whether through nuclear war or through the erosion of our life-giving planet, I also hope fervently that we are the source of our own salvation, that somehow, together, we will find solutions to the greatest problems that plague our species. I just realized how ironic it is that I can have such great optimism and such hope for humankind's salvation, but I cannot seem to muster the strength to have that some optimism for my own. I recognize my own inconsistency.
When you are diagnosed with advanced cancer and the statistics are rather dramatically not in your favor, people always tell you not to pay attention to the numbers, that you are not a number, etc...etc...etc.... Those trite words seem to go hand-in-hand with platitudes like "Never give up" or "There's always hope", You have to stay positive, Everything happens for a reason. At the beginning of this cancer journey, when faced with everything head-on...the sobering statistics, for my own self-preservation, I intuitively shunned the numbers too, insisting to myself and my husband that I am someone who has always defied the odds and that this would be no different. I knew I wasn't a number. I chose not to live and die by what the odds-makers say. I chose not to put faith into percentages that were assembled by some anonymous researcher looking at a bunch of impersonal data points. Instead, I chose to put faith in God, in me, in my body, my mind, my spirit.....those parts of me are already so practiced in the art of defying the odds.
Speaking of defying the odds, if you really think about it, Kevin and I were from two completely different worlds. When I ponder the disparate worlds from which Kevin and I hailed, the odds of us getting married was pretty slim to 0 %. But, I saw something in those beautiful baby blues of his....something that continues to pull me in deeper into his arms. We go through some of the toughest times together, but we always stick through them....and stay together.
We did meet and we did marry. In this chaotic universe of so many people and innumerable paths crossing randomly for brief moments of time, our life threads touched and fused together. If the odds of us meeting and getting married were so slim, then how did we in fact meet and get married? How can that impossible occurrence be reconciled with the numbers? Is it so simple to say that our union is an example of how numbers do mean something, that indeed our union is proof positive of the worthlessness of statistics? I don't think so.
If I didn't believe in the numbers that tell me I will likely not die when I walk out of the door or board a plane, we would never leave home! We go to bed every night expecting the sun to rise in the morning because based on the rules of probability, this is what will happen. We save for our children's college educations and our own retirements because, based on the odds, we expect our children to grow up healthy and go to college, and yes, we expect ourselves to age and enjoy retirement. Everything we do in our lives, we do based on the likelihood of something happening; it's called planning.
While those of us who have advanced cancer would like to ignore the statistics that pertain to whether we will live or die from our disease and to say that numbers mean squat, it would be hypocritical to do so because as we live with our disease, we must in fact continue to live and with living comes the need to plan.
In order to beat this cancer, I have to be exceptional. Maybe the price I must pay for a longer life is enduring some pain and hardship now so that I can be spared later.
Love you all....mean it,
Shanna xoxoxo
LUNGevity National Hope Summit: I'm participating in an event to raise money to fight lung cancer—and I need your help!
I'm planning to attend LUNGevity Foundation's National HOPE Summit in Washington, DC, in May - it's a special conference just for lung cancer survivors like me. If I can raise $1000 or more in donations, LUNGevity will cover my travel expenses, including US round-trip transportation and hotel accommodations.
Proceeds from this fundraiser will benefit LUNGevity Foundation, the leading private provider of research funding for lung cancer. LUNGevity Foundation is firmly committed to making an immediate impact on increasing quality of life and survivorship of people with lung cancer by accelerating research into early detection and more effective treatments, as well as providing community, support, and education for all those affected by the disease.
Please join me in my efforts to stop lung cancer—the leading cancer killer—now!
Official prayer warrior page for my fight against lung cancer: facebook.com/hope4shanna
Official blog Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/shannabananahealthandfitness
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