By the end of 2014, I had just begun giving workshops at a Community College using a program and WEBSITE I developed called “Day Dreams in Focus” (DDIF).
Then without warning, and out of no where, I was hit with a personal TSUNAMI. I was diagnosed with UTERINE CANCER. It scared the bejeezes out of me. When you first hear the word CANCER the brain comes to a complete STOP.
You can’t hear past that word even though everyone keeps talking, your brain is stuck on CANCER.
Before the word cancer 
After the word cancer with a fog. 
You quickly recall each and EVERY person you’ve ever known or read about that has this wretched THING! But then the brain keeps repeating ……..HOW did this happen? How did this happen? How DID this happen?
You roll back your mind, and you think, a few weeks ago, I was taking Kickboxing lessons, walking 3 to 5 miles a day, eating my fruits and veggies, no smoking, (never have), and very moderate drinking. I felt great, I mean seriously GREAT, on top of the world. I was getting ready to live my Dream.
But of course, that was my vision. The Universe had other plans for Me.
But I kept repeating, HOW – HOW – HOW?
HOW did this happen? HOW do you tell your family and friends? HOW do you explain to your children what this means to their life?
Just thinking about telling my children was frightening. It’s the only time I came really close to breaking down. I wanted to cry for “them”.
I had to sit down quietly and give myself some time to think. My brain, my mind, my thoughts, whatever, were all over the place like they had all been cross wired and short circuited.
Everything was racing through my head but at the same time my brain had STOPPED with the word CANCER. Everyone keeps talking, but the brain can’t get past that word.
Funny thing was, I did hear someone in the back of my brain “screaming” in disbelief, but I couldn’t tell if it was me or an ancestral relative. All I remember is…..“OMG, WOW, OMG, WOW, OMG, WOW!
A MOST PRECIOUS WORD
But, by the time I settled down and got home from the doctors office, I remembered a precious word that the doctor had said, she had said, it was the word TREATABLE.
OMG, I remembered the Doctor saying it was TREATABLE! I remembered the word and I almost got Happy. That day I fell in LOVE with that “most precious word in the world”
TREATABLE! TREATABLE! TREATABLE!
I won’t go into the minutiae of all the things that happened after that but I will share some of the things that later made it bearable.
Fast forward past the dizzying days that followed, and every time I attempted to discuss the issue with family and friends it made me sad. I think it was more about being nervous for them.
So I had to come up with some “POLLYANA positive” rules for myself and my family on how we were going to take this Journey
POLLYANA RULE #1
My first rule was, please no big displays of fear and sadness. No loud crying and negative talk, at least not in front of me. I didn’t want that constant cloud of fear and sadness over me 24 hours a day. Let’s just do whatever was necessary and move on to the next POSITIVE step.
That one single rule was pivotal for me on my Journey and in the long run did the most for my morale.
Of course I did pray a lot. No, I mean I prayed “A LOT.” I prayed that I would not get paralyzed with fear or sadness. I didn’t want to be afraid and I didn’t want to be sad. But more than that, I certainly didn’t want my children or family to be full of fear and sadness. I had to let them all know I was okay, and I wanted them to feel the same way.
Don’t get me wrong, I mean there were days I was out of my mind with fear, but I had to keep reminding myself to “let go and let GOD!”
For me another major help was repeating affirmations over and over again. Many were scriptures right out of the Bible, or just inspirational words I had seen or heard.
I would repeat these words over and over, and they gave me so much comfort, words like: “with him all things are possible”, “my peace I give you”, etc.