I consider myself Lucky :)

I have written about this before, but I do consider myself blessed beyond belief.  I look at what I have been through this last year, or even what I have gone through in life and I have always been a big believer that every situation could be worse.  I have been told more times than I can tell you how nice it is to see me stay so positive and smile even with what has been going on.  My response is and always will be, I don't have a choice in what I am going through so I need to make the best of it and it could always be worse.

Let's face it, I know some people will argue with me that there are ways to fight cancer, or even ways to prevent cancer.  For some cancers there is ways for prevention but for most, it is simply the luck of the draw.  It is nothing I ate, nothing I could eat different now, nothing I did to my body, It's not that I didn't pray enough, nothing I could do different in the future, and simply IT IS WHAT IT IS.  I cannot live my life every day wondering what I could have done different because I couldn't do anything about it.  When I do have those moments of weakness or sadness I immediately try to turn that off (sometimes it takes a little bit :) and switch gears to why I am so lucky and blessed even through it all.

There are so many examples I could give you on why I am so lucky, but I will just name a few:  I am so lucky that my cancer was found at a point that I had options to treat it and was able to go through the surgery with a successful outcome of removing all visible cancer.  Do you have any idea how many people cannot even have their cancer removed and have to live on maintenance chemo for the rest of their life just hoping that it will keep the cancer stable.  I am so lucky!!!!   What about how lucky I am to have such a huge support system in my life, with my family and friends.  My last stay at the hospital was very hard on me but my husband and father were by my side the whole time.  I was never alone.  The lady next to my room, had to have been around 70 years old and never had a single person visit her the whole 6 days that I was there.  She was all by herself and would scream out for people to help her because of her pain.  I cannot even imagine being sick, alone and at a hospital with no loved ones to be there for support.  I wanted so bad to just go sit by her and hold her hand so she knew someone was there for her just like I had people there holding my hand always!  I am so lucky!!!!!

I run into people every day that have daily complaints about what is going on in their life or even around them.  For instance there is someone at work that complains every day about something usually work related. Yesterday the complaints were about another employee that he thought did not deserve to work there because he is better than that employee.  I simply sit there with a smile from ear to ear and let him complain away about what ever he feels is necessary.  When it is all done, I say "You need to consider yourself lucky and not spend anytime on the small stuff you are stressing out about".  I know he thinks I'm crazy but I do mean that with all my heart.  When you gripe about work, stop yourself and consider yourself lucky that you have a job.  If work does not make you happy, it's time to find something different that does.  I know changes are hard, believe me when I say I KNOW!  However if you need to make necessary changes in life to be happy, no matter how hard these are, you must do it!  I have made several changes in life to make sure that I am living my life to the fullest and for my happiness, and these were very difficult changes. One example: my first marriage.... By doing that I met my soul mate and the last 17 years have been the best years of my life, I AM SO LUCKY!!!!!    My point of all this is when things seem so stressful, ridiculous, not fair and even depressing, remember that there is always something or someone that has it worse than you and you too are so lucky no matter what the situation is.  I am going to keep smiling, and staying positive!! I am going to live my life considering myself one of the lucky ones, no matter where this road takes me and I challenge you all to do the same exact thing!!!!!