Love Is The Drug

There is more than one answer for cancer. An essential one in the fight against cancer is love - love for the patient and love for one another (as in the supporting family members). We are faced with the unknowns that create doubt, uncertainty, and the frenzied reactions in the patient as well as their caregivers. A myriad of answers exist to mitigate these difficulties but the one most important in my experiences is love.

Love for family, love for self...that is the binding force that will hold everyone together through this uncertain battle. If I did not have love for my family, I would be quick to abandon them and let the random winds of life ravage away at them. But what kind of person would I be? Abandoning my family who sheltered, educated, and provided for me from infancy to adulthood. As family members with varying view points, personalities, and a gap between generations, we are faced with communication problems in more ways than one, but we are binded together by love. We may argue, become caught in the moment, but through love and calmness of mind, we prevail.

For the love of my family, I stick through the difficult times, because time is short, and we can only hold on to the experiences and memories that we have. The cancer has been so detrimental to my mothers health that she can barely stand on her own, let alone perform the most simple of daily tasks. I take each day as a gift to spend time with her while I still can.

It's funny though how I didn't choose to spend that much time with her when her cancer was first diagnosed, and she was still healthy - at least healthier than she is now. But as she nears the final leg of her life, I know these may be the last chances that I am able to spend with her, so I cherish each waking moment I have with her. Funny how that is...how love reveals its truth in suffering.

Finding the Answer

The never ceasing questions, and the always elusive answers. This is the cycle of life it seems. We are always looking for an answer to the questions of life..."How will I pay for school?" "How can I better take care of myself and my family?" "Am I ready to be a parent?" "Is this really what I want?" Questions like these are created through fear and doubt and are further fueled by our own insecurities.

The only way to truly answer these types of questions is through faith and time. We put faith in our higher power hoping and praying for guidance - faith that we as human beings will make the right decision when it comes down to crunch time. With these decisions guided by faith, only time will tell if we have made the right choices. And if the outcome of these choices do not meet our expectations, then we rinse and repeat, adding or subtracting from the formula of life, in hopes to find success, or at least learning from our mistakes and failures.

Right now, I'm trying to find the answer to why my mother was one of the unfortunate ones to be diagnosed with cancer...I've come up with some ideas and hypothetical answers, but they do not satisfy my inquiry. To those that have faced such a turning point in their lives, I commend you for coping with this and providing support to those that you love. This is the beginning of my path towards educating those that seek the knowledge and information regarding cancer and all things related.