This Is Why I’m Not a ‘Conventional’ Breast Cancer Patient

I often get comments from people about how I choose to live my life while battling cancer. Some ask, how I do it all?  Some make comments about living my life to the fullest and taking chances, some even make snide comments here and there about burning the candle at both ends, and that I don’t conventionally live as a cancer patient. Honesty I don’t even know what to say about that because the question becomes, how is a cancer patient supposed to live her life? Am I supposed to look and act a certain way to have the label of “cancer patient?” Here is my take on life and I how I choose to live it.

“A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.”  To continue to grow and transform as a person, I choose to live outside of my comfort zone. I truly believe this is what keeps me alive — and not just alive, but thriving. I choose to not let fear control me; I choose to say “yes” to things that push the envelope of excitement and flood my belly with butterflies. To live in the moments of life that push the envelope of my talents and even my weaknesses.

For so long, I put my happiness on hold because I let fear and cancer control me. It wasn’t until I let go of the need to control every bit of my life, wanting to live to another day, instead of living for today. I found my inner lion and took control over living in moment to moment joy. I took the leap of faith believing in myself and the unstoppable force of thriving. I no longer put myself in a “cancer box.” I decided to unwrap the joys of living. Knowing at the end of it all I will have no regrets for the chances I took, the people I met, the friendships I made and the memories I have.

Am I a “conventional” cancer patient? I am for me, and that’s all that matters. So let me give some advice before you tell others how they “should” act, look, or behave… No one in this world is pure and perfect, yet we judge and form opinions as if we are. Casting your judgment on their decisions or lives will leave you alone in this world. So how about we judge less and live more? The words you speak can hurt, heal, motivate, inspire and even change the world. Never forget the responsibility you have over those words you speak and the opinions you form.

We are all living life our own way; there is no road map or perfect way. I choose to live outside my comfort zone, and whether I am here for two more days, two more years or two more decades, I know I will have no regrets. So, my Fabulous Fighters, live your life for you.  Like the saying goes, “Do you, Boo.”

Follow this journey on Fabulously Fighting.