Finding Joy During Stage IV Cancer

During cancer, your priorities shift. I recognized that I wanted to spend more time with my grandkids. Three of my grandkids and my daughter live on the East Coast, and I’m in Texas. When you’re working full-time, it’s hard to see them. I really appreciate the fact that I can spend more time with them now. I also have a new grandson who is less than two years old, and he’s here in San Antonio. I’m also able to spend more time with him, my son, and my husband. 

During COVID, I couldn’t travel. I also broke my hip at the very beginning of the pandemic and spent a week in the hospital and another week in rehab. After that, nobody traveled for almost two years. During that whole time, all I could think about was how this was wasting time that I wanted to spend with my family. So, coming out of the pandemic, I prioritized spending time with them. 

When you have cancer, you recognize that time is limited. It’s not infinite.

People think, “I’ll have time to do that later. I’ll have time to have that conversation later.” Once you stop putting things off, you start having those important conversations.

I often think about my husband, who has basically become a caregiver in so many ways because of my limited mobility. There are so many things that he does around the house because I can’t do them. He does all the grocery shopping, most of the cooking, and a lot of the cleaning. This wasn’t how we imagined spending our retirement. He just recently retired. I always thought we’d spend our retirement traveling, visiting the grandkids, or visiting beaches around the world. But those things are very difficult when your mobility is limited. Everything has to be planned out to a T. 

For our 35th anniversary, we went to Costa Rica. That was on my bucket list because I studied there in college for a year and a half as an exchange student. I wanted him to see the country too. I used a travel agent at an agency that specializes in arranging trips for people with disabilities. The person who owned the agency was in a wheelchair. The agency is called Wheel the World. The agency arranged for me to have a guide, a van, and visits to accessible beaches. Travel is possible, you just have to put in more effort, and you need more help. But I learned from this trip that it is still possible, albeit more expensive.

When I turned 45, I thought, “If I don’t start this book now, I’m never going to write it.” I started writing before I left my full-time job, but I was squeezing it in at night or early in the morning. I also had two kids in middle school, so finding time for writing was difficult. A silver lining in the situation of having cancer was that I was able to retire earlier. I was eligible for both a good pension and disability, so I could focus on writing for the first time.

Writing has helped me cope with my anxiety by taking my mind off all the difficulties that I’m having.

I was really fortunate to feel well enough to write most of the time. Exercising and writing were two things that helped me keep my focus away from cancer. 

I already had a contract with a publisher at the beginning of my cancer journey. The extra time I had to write allowed me to continue to get future contracts. I also attended writing conferences to hone my craft and truly enjoy something that I always knew I wanted to do. I’ve now written over 30 books and a dozen novellas. I write Amish romances, romantic suspense, and have branched into women’s fiction recently. I’ve been able to explore new genres and have had the support of my agent and publisher to do so.

In this respect, I feel very blessed.

I also use my eight years of living with ovarian cancer as a form of research. When I did start writing women’s fiction, I wrote a book about an oncologist who is so engrossed in her profession that she neglects her family. Her sister is diagnosed with ovarian cancer, so the oncologist steps off the fast track of life to walk through this season with her sister. Everything that I’d lived through and all the emotions I had went into that book. It’s fiction, but I wouldn’t have been able to put in those authentic details if I hadn’t experienced them. This book is named The Year of Goodbyes and Hellos.

I feel like it was really something preordained that I’m able to use my experience to write something that would speak to people who have had cancer, or who have had loved ones who have cancer. My book speaks to the fears of those living with chronic diseases and disabilities. There’s still hope and joy, especially joy, in that journey.

Photo courtesy of author.