Recommended reading
Kelley Doyle Philbin writes an elegant post entitled “EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW IN LIFE I LEARNED WHEN I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH BREAST CANCER!” that I highly recommend. I found a lot of her words resonated – both with my experience and with the experiences that others have shared with me during various support groups that I attend. Her words so elegantly reflect the reality for many women.
I am sad whenever I hear of men leaving when their partner has breast cancer. I find myself wishing for these women that they find a real man (or women) – one who truly loves them for who they are – as I have been so lucky to find my true life partner. Any man (or women) who is so shallow doesn’t deserve the love of the strong women who are cancer warriors.
I also worry, not about my husbands love for me, but about his health – and what he needs to be doing to take care of himself, because it is a lot to take care of me and I cannot adequately take care of him. At least not right now, not in this moment, when I’m too focused – sometimes feeling selfishly focused – on me. But knowing also, that part of being a warrior is being selfish when I need to be – cause right now, I need strength to mentally (more so than physically) get through two more rounds of AC chemo and 12 rounds of T chemo!
Soon, this shall trump both RAGBRAI and Africa as the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do!
- Becky
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The terms “selfish” gets a bad rap (I think) and I agree that it’s what you need to do at the moment. You are blessed to have Scott to support you — and at some point in your lives he will likely need more support from you (not necessarily because of anything hard occurring in his life) and you will undoubtedly be there for him :). Life is just a series of cycles…
Kelly’s posting was great. A person becomes different I find my heart problems set me aside from some but I also need to be aware that the subject of possibly dying scares people away. Leslie and I have a friend who just gave birth to her second child and it seems natural for her to be shy of us. So I’m changing my approach so I can see her new baby and also because it feels like a kindness to her. Not seeing and the baby is another sadness I don’t need. Having “normal” relationships feels healing too.
Our daughter Lindsay had a relationship that ended because she wouldn’t adapt her life to serve his needs. With the right person this could work out without sacrificing a person’s autonomy. But it has to be a freely given gift of love and certainly not demanded.
Leslie and I are sort of choreographing a life together that seems like we are “giving something up” when to us it seems like a more complete life.