figures, it's leila. :)

I'm inspired to share my personal story and journey on this site.  I've used tumblr mostly for sharing "fluffy", spirit-related, love and life-based messages in the form of quotes, pictures, and stories, but rarely my own.  But I've decided to make a change.  I think life is meant to be shared.  Our stories are very rarely our own, rather, they are collective stories that every one of us can relate to and/or grow from.

On this particular leg of my journey I'm learning how to choose life amidst a cancer diagnosis.  I received news last September that the breast cancer I had in 2007 has returned.  But this time, I'm in a different place.  Shortly after my 33rd birthday, in October of 2013, I experienced quite the awakening, and haven't been the same since.  I can go into a whole year of transformative life events that occurred, but let's just say it was an EPIC year, and I'm not one to use that term lightly.  So when I received the news about the diagnosis, part of me went, 'well of course, that'd happen!'  Let's just say that if there really were a divine plan, which I am most certain there was, the recurrence and the timing of it was no coincidence.

The way that I have handled everything this time around has been so different.  My first response wasn't fear-based.  If it were, I'd have let it be, and it would've been okay too, but it wasn't.  There was fear, yes, but it was a subtle acceptance, of the way things just are.  In the immediate moments following up until now, and overall, I just wasn't afraid.  Sure along the way, I have had fears surface, and when those moments are here, I allow myself to feel it, but this time compared to the last, there is just a lack of fear that's driving my choices.

And for me, that has made all the difference.  In 2007, I had nothing but fear.  I also didn't allow myself to feel it, so I was in denial about the whole thing.  I opted for the bilateral mastectomy, a huge choice for women, because I was told that my chances of recurrence would lessen by a considerable amount.  "Yes, take my healthy breast, and whatever else you want!"  But of course, it would return anyway.  Who knew?  Life happens despite what we do, but I believe that it happens in the spirit of growth and opportunity.  I didn't let myself dwell on the fact that it came back despite the preventive choice for too long.

Back to the fact that fear is no longer the captain of my ship, I am thus taking a serious look at alternative cancer treatments.  To each her own, and what I have realized is that I have more faith in the potentiality and capacity of every cell of my body to heal, than I do in the westernized, non-individualized, destruction-based philosophy that embodies conventional cancer treatment.  Yes, I speak of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.

I just had surgery in the beginning of December, and I am grateful for the team of doctors who have assisted me along the way, but I am not the best candidate for their recommended treatment.  In taking a really good amount of time in thinking about treatment, I concluded that whichever treatment I decided on, I really had to believe in it.

In fact, shortly before my most recent surgery, when I had a moment to myself, I looked outside the hospital window while I lay in bed and I had a thought.  It was more of a conversation with every cell in my body, but then I also became every cell of my body.  I basically said that we were going to accept everything that entered my body as a form of healing.  That meant all of the anesthesia, the antihistamine, the cutting, all of it was going to be okay.  It allowed me to mindfully and intentionally, with every cell in my body, accept all of what the surgery entailed as something positive.  

This was my eighth surgery, and I have had some exceptional surgeons, but of all of them in terms of recovering from anesthesia, pain management, energy levels, and healing, this was by far the best outcome I have ever had.  Friends and family couldn't believe it, and I think a big part of it had to do with that moment of clarity that I had by myself in the hospital room.  I really do believe that every living thing has its own consciousness, and how wonderful would it be for us to use the collective consciousness in our own bodies to assist us in healing.  I think it's possible to heal from the inside out, and would go so far as to say that that's the only way we heal.