Cancer and Me
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
By: Aimee Watson

I've grown up knowing cancer and what it can do to you. I've seen its impacts on my family, but now it's my turn to try to figure out how I live with this thing called cancer.

It seems like so much of my life has been shaped by cancer. It's almost like I could trace my family tree based on cancer. Grandfather died of lung cancer when I was 4, Grandmother died of cancer when I was 11, an uncle died of cancer when I was in my 20s, and last year another uncle died of cancer, my own amazing father died of cancer when I was 21. I have lost friends to cancer. I hate what cancer has taken from me. And now it's my turn. Cancer has taken my breast, it (briefly) took my hair, it took my energy, it tried to take my spirit, but I'm fighting back and I will keep fighting back. It's not pretty and pink, it's not lovely pink ribbons floating around it's not always stories of victory; it's about battles, it's about losing sometimes, and winning sometimes, it's about using all your strength and it's about being yourself and figuring out how you want to live and sometimes die. Cancer has taught me a lot about life, about perseverance, about living through loss; but Cancer is NOT my life.

I am not cancer and I won't be defined as cancer.