Choosing Me: A Radical Self-Love Journey

Radical Self-Love is a form of true acceptance. It is telling yourself it is okay to be selfish. It is knowing you are enough, as you are. 

“What is Radical Self-Love?”

Radical self-love is being in a state where you believe yourself to be more than enough. You know that you're worthy and enough, no matter what flaws and shortcomings you have as an individual. When you have radical self-love, you have everything you need within” 

Cancer has a way of changing you. Many cancer patients are trying to figure out what “the new normal” is for their lives while fighting cancer or when their cancer goes into remission. 

You see scars from surgery, you might have hair loss or your hair is different after, your nails, mouth and other body parts are not as they once were. To me, it was like aging fast, like I was in a time warp. I was young, then after battling cancer I suddenly had an old, weak, frail and fragile body. To be blunt. It sucked.

I ended up getting cancer two more times.

I never wanted to do chemotherapy the first time and I really didn’t want to do it the second time. As many of us do, however, I felt pressure from my loved ones to do all I could to fight the good fight. I’ve now done 24 rounds total.

I thought the fight was over and I was done. My oncologist told me I had to stay on Avastin or the cancer could come back. I did as told, but before the next year was up, here came another cancer. It wasn’t as big, but I have learned it doesn’t matter how big it is, it matters where it is at and how it affects your body. 

If he would have just done the PET scan early, we would have found it early. Alas, we found it late. Again, it is not big but it sits on lumbar and sacral modalities so it is painful. When they went in for an 8-hour surgery and I came out an hour and a half later, I knew something was wrong. There were four more tumors and they all were malignant.

I fired doc one and found two new oncologists. We have done a series of tests and I found I have a KRAS mutation. I could write a whole article on what I found but let me tell you the simple version. No matter what amount of chemo or radiation I do, the KRAS mutation will NEVER go away. The best they can do is inhibit it. I can inhibit it without doing chemo.

I tried to do just Avastin and Xeloda but my body was not tolerating it, I felt I had some hard decisions to make. Keep going or stop this crazy merry-go-round and get off.

The decision to love me more fully was really my biggest decision. Do I love myself enough to stand up for what I want?

I spent months talking to my therapist, researching, weighing all the options, trying Ketamine Infusions, and other alternatives. Through it all, last week, I kept thinking “When do I get to be free?” “When is it my turn to live?” If you ever read my book Falling into Fabulous: A Phoenix Rising, you would know I was dealt a crap hand at life. I have been positive and hopeful and done all I could to live my best life. Yet I could feel my heart long for more.

I kept hearing myself say “This isn’t living. This is not quality of life. This is not how I desire to spend my life. I choose Quality of Quantity.”

It comes down to loving myself, wholly, Radical Self-Love. I know I am enough. I owe it to myself to love myself more fully. Understand, I am not wagging a finger at anyone, or saying your choices are wrong. I know, in my bones, this is not living to me. 

I am tired of being a Cancer Warrior. I am tired of fighting. Mostly, I am just tired.

I’m ready to turn the page to the next chapter of my life before my book is finished. I love my family and my friends and I know this decision will be extremely hard on them, but it’s my time to live life on my terms, to live my best life, to be free. 

It’s time to love me. :)

I have decided to hit the open road! I am turning my Fiat 500CC into a Tiny Camper and going to go see family and friends and live life with nature, my cat Dude, some good road trips songs and turn in my title of being a Cancer Warrior and become a Cancer Camper instead. I will be a Cancer Thriver. I will own my other titles as the Sprinkler of Fabulousness, a Crusader for Humanity, A Good Human, a Starfish Saver, and most of all...content.

I am giving myself what I need. Me.