Harry S. Truman said: "A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities, and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties." Yes, I have decided that is how I am going to handle this experience. I am a person who is living with cancer, not dying from it. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend. I remember seeing someone walking down the hall outside my daddy's hospital room, and they had on a jacket that said across the back, "I have Cancer, but it doesn't have me!" I may not be in control of this cancer, but I am in control of how I live my life with it. I choose to live each and every day God gives me to the best of my ability. I bought a key chain, while daddy was in the hospital, it read, "Every day is a gift from God". I still feel that way. Some choose to waste that gift, by feeling sorry for themselves. We have too much debt. We don't have enough money. My house is not big enough. My car is not new enough, or fancy enough. I read in a book recently, about a "Something for Jesus to Do" box. Whenever I have a problem I feel I couldn't handle, I put it in the box, and let God do His work. There is a letter in the box, folded up neatly, that reads: "Good morning. I am the Lord your God. Today I will be handling all of your problems. Please remember that I do not need your help. If the devil happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE IT. Kindly put it in this box. It will be addressed in my time, not yours. Once the matter is placed in the box, do not attempt to hold onto it, or attempt to remove it. Holding on or removal will delay the resolution of your problem. If it is a situation that you are capable of handling, please consult me in prayer to assure it is the proper resolution. Because I do not sleep nor do I slumber, there is no need for you to lose any sleep. Rest my child. Should you need to contact me, I am only a prayer away. Love eternally, The Lord your God. While my daddy was in the hospital, I read a book called "A New Kind of Normal". Daddy would joke about everything being his "new normal". We were all changed by dad's leukemia, I think. Our perspectives on normal things, normal problems, normal people. I remember going to Wal-Mart at 9:30 at night, because that was the only time we had time. And seeing other people there, that we knew! But more so than not, I caught myself looking at all the other people, seemingly walking through their normal lives. How strange it felt, that we were dealing with such a crisis, while others were just doing normal things. Life was just continuing on, normally for others. Life just goes on, with or without us. I catch myself feeling those same feelings now. Life is just going on, in other peoples lives. I catch myself feeling sorry for myself sometimes. We live in such a breast-obsessed society. Every movie, every commercial, every pretty dress, etc. I am well aware that before this is all said and done, I will lose at least one of mine, if not both. Yes, they are saying that there will also be reconstruction done, but not for some time after. There will be some time that I will have none. Dresses don't hang right, when you don't have anything there, let alone swimsuits. So this summer is going to be fun. My next trip to our timeshare in Daytona Beach is gonna be way different for me this year. I have always heard that if you breast feed, that you have very little chance of having breast cancer. Well, hmmm, I have breast fed 10 children. So, I think that "theory" just got blown out of the water. I know I am not supposed to analyze this either. It's all part of the plan for my life, and God is not surprised. But I sure am. My cancer is HER2 positive. Approximately 25% of women with breast cancer or HER2 positive, meaning they have an excess of a protein known as HER2 and this makes the cancer spread quickly. But there is a promising new drug on the market, Herceptin, that is working very well for women that are HER2 positive. I would like to think I am going to kick cancer's butt. But, in reality, none of us knows. I could be hit by a bus on the way to the hospital. My new normal is about today. Today is the only guarantee I have, so I am trying to make it count. Before cancer, I thought my plans. In 5 years.... In 10 years.... Retirement..... In the past 2 years, since February 8th, 2007, I have been taught a huge lesson, we are not in control. It does no good to worry. If we can change something, change it. As for the rest, I give it up to God. Put it in the box, so to speak. Everyone encounters bumps in the road of life. My daddy said to me, when talking of his leukemia, "this is just a bump in the road". We can react one of two ways: We can feel sorry for ourselves, be angry, and spend all our energy asking why. Or we can take control of how we react, accept that obstacles are part of life, and be happy anyway. Life is about choices. As part of my new normal, I choose to be happy. I will continue to put one foot in front of the other and live my life. I will continue to call my mom every day, twice a day. I cherish her laughter, her "good days". I will love on my Emma Jean, who, when I heard her playing today with her baby doll and her sister, I heard her say, "don't hug me on this side, that's where my booboo is", I wanted to cry. She is already making all this part of her normal. She still comes over and asks to see my booboo (my port). She wants to feel it. It's part of my new kind of normal........