Back at it again!

It is hard sometimes to force myself to spend the day at doctor's offices.  It is especially hard to have to see so many others there that are not doing well. It reminds me of how difficult it is.  Cancer is hard.  There is just no denying that it is a terrible, difficult disease.  However, I am grateful for good health care and thankful that so many people are on my team, helping me to make sure that I remain healthy.  So, I went in on Monday for Chemo and I was grateful that I was going there to remain healthy and not because I am sick. I will be going back again this afternoon for my injection. WooooHOOOOO! You all have no idea how much fun your missing out on. :)

Ok so I'm reading this book. Its called Crazy,Sexy Cancer. I'm in love with just the title. This book is really making me dig DEEP. Now remember you don't have to be a cancer patient to benefit from this. This is gonna be a fire starter, an inner revolution boot camp. We are gonna do exercises, meditations, "aha" moments, rituals, and midnight-ramble-back-porch brainstorms - for EVERYONE! Its meant to inspire you to become an empowered participant in your healing. This isn't about cancer, this is about life, and life is a juggernaut of gorgeous, staggering, messy, brilliant, yes, no, holy cow, holy shit, champagne supernova, love, loss, and learning. The only thing you have to bring to this is willingness to be fearless. No one gets a easy pass: we're all hauling around something, and we can either drown in the suffering or use it as a springboard for personal metamorphosis. Our spunky attitude is the key to our freedom. So what are you going to do? Open up, breathe in, and let yourself THRIVE!!!!

Ok Team Mandy: Stay calm. Anyone who has been diagnosed with the pesky big C knows that its a crisis of the mind as well as the body. I immediately imagined the worst and busted to my knees in prayer for a kind yet authoritative soul to tell me that this nightmare was all a mistake. I was waiting for the JUST KIDDING! But it never happened. Instead I was introduced to mortality, "Greetings, Death. I'm Mandy and I'm not ready for you yet so BACK OFF!"Time stops and suddenly I understood that dorky old saying, "Without our health, we have nothing."
Cancer demands that we get off our asses and GO FOR IT - I mean it really, What am I waiting for? Out with the complaints, in with the solutions. We need to give ourselves a tune up from the inside out.

If you haven't already, now is the time to give yourself authorization to define your own journey. Put yourself in a can -do space. In my mind I was a survivor the day I was diagnosed. As someone with cancer I live everyday with a suffocating weight on me. What if? Will I see my next birthday? I imagine myself gone and my kids being raised by a stripper. LOL! Cancer puts me on a rim and while I'm on the rim I have an opportunity to appreciate and express fear simultaneously. I multi task dying with living while managing my chores to keep it together. So why not celebrate all that I've/ we've managed to accomplish already? Sometimes just keeping it together is surviving. So stand up straight and yell the S word. No not that one :) SURVIVOR! Survivors come in many shapes and sizes. The best part about being a survivor is the appreciation you will feel for the little things (even when they're painful): the sheer joy of peeing in the ocean; of crying so hard that you burst into giggle madness; the agony of suffering over a lost loved one or a perished dream. SURVIVORS squeeze every drop of juice from its extraordinary life. From diagnosis to discovery survivor is an attitude. You my friends are ALL survivors no matter what. I am a survivor! Lets not wait til the icy patch thaws before celebrating life.
We see freedom, create it, become it. When I put cancer behind me and started smiling again, the disease lost its grip on me.

Ok here goes. Go get a piece of paper and something to write with. Pen, pencil, crayons,markers, red lipstick whatever.  I DARE YOU!  I don't care if you wanna laugh, cry, fart sneeze do what ever ya need to do. LOL! Some of this you will need to change up for yourself. Whatever it is you may be dealing with in life it doesn't matter if what it is. If your here dealing your a SURVIVOR. I of course am dealing with cancer so that's how this will all be worded for me.
Ok so this is part one: Write it on your piece of paper......... I am a SURVIVOR, a crazy sexy SURVIVOR and thriver!!!!!!
Come on people with heart and enthusiasm make it pretty twirl and doodle all over it.

Some of you are thinking this is soooooo stupid. You gotta hang in there with me. There's a lot more to this. One part at a time we will get there. I wanna see your papers people.

That's my lesson for the day! :) WE ALL ARE SURVIVORS!!!!
 We'll do some more tomorrow.
xoxoxoxox
Mandy