A Letter to a New Cancer Patient

“Wanting to be someone else, is a waste of the person you are” ~Marilyn Monroe

I was diagnosed with Colorectal Cancer in 2015, a few months after my 40th birthday. I was devastated. Why would this happen to me? I was the poster child of health & fitness in all the ways one can be “healthy". One thing I could come up with after months and months of agonizing and fighting this diagnosis, unwilling to accept the fate of living with a permanent colostomy bag after being inundated with poisonous chemicals and radiation….I had lived for 20 years with chronic inflammation and autoimmune disease.

My immune system was compromised from mono when I was a teen and the standard american college diet of processed foods & alcohol contributed to my gut permeability but this was misunderstood in the late 1990’s. So I adapted to chronic bloating, constipation, fatigue and pushed through changing my lifestyle and diet at 24 with very little change in symptoms and several GI doctors telling me to just eat more fiber (which I was).

The worst thing was I was misdiagnosed with a internal hemorrhoid after my first born son and then again 7 years later when I had some symptoms. There was no recommendation for a colonoscopy or a scope. My family history and general health and lifestyle discounted any of my chronic inflammation, which was a compromised immune system.

So I spent many months and then many years processing the why? the how? the grief of what if?

Years after that distressing day I finally found a glimpse of acceptance and wrote:

“You will be ok, you will wake up one day and feel the sun again, you will breathe deep and laugh until your belly hurts, you will uncover a strength you couldn’t have imagined & most importantly remember it is ok to fall apart, to not feel strong and feel sorrow for what you have lost.”

It has taken me 5 years to get comfortable again in my body, it is a journey and has been hard! But here I am! One day you will be here as well. The journey from anguish to contentment is a highway full of detours, bottlenecks and roadblocks but if you are steadfast and let yourself grieve your lost expectations and deep loss, you will find another part of you. A part that may have not emerged without such devastation and you will begin to walk a new path full of purpose and fortitude.

Today I am thankful to accept myself, colostomy bag and all and I can honestly say I love the skin I’m in!

💕🐛🦋 ⁣