The Vision…

If you’ve found your way here, it is likely that you or someone you love has cancer. The following words are a prologue in the Cancer Treatment Journal. My vision for the journal is to serve as a resource for cancer patients and their support systems. This is something I am passionate about and I am so thankful that it is published and ready to get out to those who need it. My vision also includes this web site, to accompany the journal. My hope is that it can help us to build a community and serve as a platform to share stories and encourage anyone facing a cancer diagnosis.

Journal Prologue;

I am sorry about your diagnosis. I cannot begin to understand how that feels. I do know it has changed the course of your life. I do know that the person you were before the words were spoken to you, isn’t the person you will be now. But with that pain, I believe in beautiful transformations. I believe in feeling all this journey has to teach you, and I believe in the power of journaling. I believe in putting your thoughts on paper as a means of helping you navigate this experience.

What makes me capable or credible to create this journal? That is a question I struggle with. I have never had cancer. But I have spent my life working with cancer patients. I’ve walked the halls of their journeys with them. I’ve observed, I’ve supported, and I’ve cried with them. I’ve had friends and family who have also faced this giant and I’ve done the same with them. I’m going to share some of their stories throughout this journal, hopefully providing some inspiration for you.  Lastly, I too have had my own life altering experience.

What I know from the cancer patients that I’ve been privileged to walk along side and from my journey, is that you’re going to NEED people. You’re going to need family and friends to lean on and to take you through this journey. I also know you’ll never be the person you were before you heard the diagnosis, but I believe with all that I am, that you will come out stronger and with a very different view of life. That can be a blessing if you let it.

I recently heard a podcast about dealing with grief shared by Kayla Stoecklien.  She was the wife of a pastor who committed suicide, as a result of depression. Her words spoke loudly to my journey and they are applicable to yours.  “The only way to get through grief is to go directly through it and tackle it head on.  You can’t go around it, over it or under it.  You have to face it!. She also shared a quote that she has clung to during her journey…  ‘The fastest way to reach the sun isn’t to follow the sunset, it’s actually to plunge into the darkness and find the sunrise.’”  I’m sure that you would do anything to get around this pain, to go under it, to make it go away.  However, your only option to get through it is to go directly through it and hit it head on.  Tackle it with a fierceness you may not be sure that you have, but break it into smaller pieces.  One day at a time, one step at a time.  Use this journal along the way to find your inner strength. 

I firmly believe that we are all on a constant growth path. It has been 8 years since my husband passed away, drastically changing every aspect of my life.  I tell people I’d give anything to get my husband back but I also don’t want to be the woman I was before he died.  I am proud of my transformation, amidst the scars and pain, into the person am today.  

As you enter your journey, my hope for you is this.   I hope that along the way you give yourself permission to feel. Do so without judgement and do so freely, knowing you will make it out the other side… Whatever that may look like for you. Let this journal be your safe place to be angry and vulnerable and strong and scared. 

There are many variables based on your diagnosis, depending on the doctors you encounter and the type of cancer you face. I pray that you do your research, enlist your support team and together make a decision on the path forward. Then set out on that journey with confidence, taking it one day at a time. Most importantly give yourself grace on the way. I wish I could tell you this will be easy, but it won’t.  It will be difficult and challenging and there will be some days you aren’t sure you have the strength.  I give you one final quote from an author I love named Glennon Doyle.  She says “this is hard, but we can do hard things!”

I hope you use this book to free-form write how you are feeling and dealing with all aspects of your diagnosis. Journaling should not be a daily burden, but instead one small tool to use when you feel like getting your thoughts on paper.  Maybe your words can be shared with someone else in the future to help them!? Maybe you will want to share with your family- to explain how you are feeling? Or maybe you will be the only person to ever see your words? The best thing about journaling, is you cannot get it wrong. It is your safe place!