Cancer can have its benefits!

The days ahead would only become brighter. So many good things began to fall into place. First of all, my brother and three year old nephew came from New Brunswick to spend two entire weeks with me. Having them as company over that time really brightened my days. And, not only did they come to visit … my brother brought with him a brand new computer which he built just for me. And this isn’t just your average computer--it is a Pentium 4, 3 GHz with 512 MB of RAM, DVD burner, mint video card, and fully equipped with all the programs one could want. What a gift--and a useful one at that. I could only imagine how much more comfortable this would make my recovery period.

In addition to this, my father began doing renovations on the house to make it more comfortable for me. Wow … I am being treated like a queen. He remodeled the bathroom and bought me a brand new bed with a beautiful pillow-top mattress. This bed is fit for a queen. A cool feature of the mattress is that it has the famous pink ribbon sewn all over it … it is not only in support of breast cancer research, but was specially designed for those undergoing breast surgery. He also bought me a 20” television to top it all off. My living space is now one which no one in their right mind would want to leave! I thought this was extremely thoughtful and generous of my family, but this shouldn’t surprise you. This is going to make the next period of my battle with breast cancer much easier.

In addition to all this, I was greeted by a major influx of friends the week following my hospital stay. People started “coming out of the woodwork.” In life we all have friends who we enjoy and appreciate, but the rush of our daily activities sometimes gets in the way of these relationships. We move, we work, we go to school, have kids … all of these things can get in the way of once strong friendships. However, in a time like this, we come to realize that these friendships shouldn’t be taken for granted. We realize how much these people mean to us. So, I think we should do whatever we can to find time to maintain the relationships that mean the most to us... no matter what is going on. Afterall, where would we be without friends? So … over the next while I was surprised at the friends I hadn’t talked to in a while that made an effort to email, call, or visit. I was even surprised to receive an email from a former roommate from university who I ended up “on the outs” with at the end of our school year. This wasn’t because we disliked one another, per say, but moreseo because of stupid petty things that seem to matter in the moment. We let these things get the better of us and haven’t talked much since. But I thought it was quite brave, respectable, and exemplary of her character to be one of the first to contact me with concerns about my health. I was also happy and touched to find an old friend from high school show up at my doorstep one afternoon. She is the same age as me (one day in the difference) and was also diagnosed with breast cancer almost exactly a year earlier. It was nice of her to offer her support—especially where she is my age and has gone through the battle already.

Finally, as you can well imagine, one of the very tough aspects of being diagnosed with a disease like cancer at the tender age of 25 is the financial burden it carries with it. In my case, it struck at the worst time possible in this respect. I just finished all the coursework for my education degree and obtained my teaching lisence in late May of this year. At that time, it was too late to begin teaching and I was beginning planning my travels to South Korea, so my number one goal became to get a temporary job and raise enough money to pay for my plane tickets to Korea (which would be reimbursed when I began working). This I did. I ran into many problems, however, when I was diagnosed a few weeks after arriving in Korea. First of all, my company would not give me a CENT for my flight because I "broke the contract" (although I really had no choice when I had an lethal disease beginning to invade my body). They also would not give me a DIME for the hours I had worked--again, because I "broke the contract." So, when I got back to Canada I was $3500 in debt for flights which were supposed to be paid-- $7000 if you include Mike's flights too. After being told that I would likely be unable to work for approx. 1 year, I went to the unemployment office in hopes that they would assist me financially. However, because I was in school the past year and therefore only worked part-time hours, I had just under the required amount of hours for unemployment. The only other option left to me was Social Assistance.

At first, I hung my head in shame going to the community services office. I just felt that I had worked so hard over the years to be successful and now I was lowered to asking society to give me money. My friends assured me that this was ok--this was what the system was designed for. I swallowed my pride and went for my first meeting with a case worker. I was shocked at how sympathetic they were. They couldn't believe my situation and said they were willing to do whatever they could to assist me in any way possible. They agreed to give me medical coverage (mine ran out in May after I turned 25) and give me a living allowance each month, which is small but enough to get me by for the time being. I became very thankful for this. It gave me a chance to reflect on the amazing country in which we live. It is a beautiful thing to know that your country will support you when times are tough. It is a beautiful thing to live in a place where people have compassion. I realized this not only when I was given such support from community services, but also when I was faced with a group of people who are money-driven and care not for people's individual circumstances (i.e. CDI, the company I worked for in South Korea).

I have heard interviews with cancer survivors in the past, and have heard (more than once) a common idea many of them have shared. This idea often puzzled me, but I am beginning to realize where they are coming from more and more: Cancer can have its benefits!!! Cancer is a potentially lethal disease, but when it strikes it changes your life, and not always in a bad way. Of course we must live in fear of the disease returning or becoming fatal, but we also find a renewed sense of life. The trivial things in life are now recognized as unimportant and the important things become clear. We regain old friendships and strenghten existing ones. We become stronger and more resiliant people. We look at life in a completely different light. (And all the other perks, like new beds, computers, and tvs don't hurt either!!!)