Survivor's Blog - October 26, 2012 The Power of a Great Example - Mike!

The past couple of weeks have been very dark for me. I have always tried to stay completely positive and up beat about this whole cancer thing (And I really do think I succeeded until the last couple of weeks). Personally, something has happened that feels like my foundation has been ripped out from under me. I am having a hard time getting myself to paddle in the right direction again.

To top it all off  I also found out that for some reason my cholesterol was too high to even be measured ( I think I probably am missing a body part related to processing cholesterol after all the surgeries). The doctor put me on a cholesterol drug that caused me to have a terrible physical reaction that put me back in severe pain for the past few days even after I stopped the drug.

I have been really angry and not too positive over all of this for a couple of weeks now (which is really unlike me). Today, I thought of my Cousin Mike and decided I should just wade through it and head toward the light. Mike has been my example through all of this cancer stuff. He was not only my cousin but one of my dearest friends. Mike was the person I called when I needed someone to tell me the truth. He could condense any situation down to the nuts and bolts because he had faced death and won ( several times) . He taught me how to live through Cancer with my head held high and my sense of joy and humor intact through his example. I never thought that a few months after he left us from cancer, I would be diagnosed with cancer too. I am now left with his memory and strength as my trail of bread crumbs through the dark and scary woods.

If I can only live up to Mike's example I will be the person I aspire to be through all this. Mike was seriously ill long before he had Cancer. He never made a big deal of it, in fact never mentioned it in public unless he had to. I truly believe many of his friends and acquaintances never did fully grasp his health situation because he had more energy and zest for life than anyone I have ever known.

Clearly I am unlike Mike, I cannot keep anything secret. I am not good at suffering in silence. My disease is so under diagnosed, underfunded, and misunderstood that  I feel I have to go as public as I can with my Cancer so that the women who come after me know that they are not alone. Maybe, in a few months I can use this blog to start to draw awareness to Ovarian Cancer. Who knows, maybe my survival can help someone else?