Some Pros and Cons of Cancer

My sister died of leukemia in 2010. For me, that was the biggest con. It tops my cons list! The other top con is the regular oncology visits to look for a reoccurrence, 3 or 4 times a year.

Carrie and I have four brothers and only had each other. We have over the years adopted lots of sisters as is our custom and that comes from our culture.

So if you are going to have a sister die from cancer it is best if you can come from a culture like ours! A nice pro.

Both our parents are from the White Earth Nation. Mom died one year before Carrie. I think Mom went first because she couldn't handle any of her kids dying before she did!

Mom dying before we got cancer was another con. You want your mommy when you are that sick.

To be fair, I'm going to try to share as many pros as cons mostly because a friend of mine, who also had cancer says that there aren't any pros to cancer.

She was eight years free of cancer when I wrote a book about cancer for one of the memorial giveaways for Carrie. She talked to me about giving up sugar because it feeds cancer!

She also gave up fast food, and gluten and started eating healthier. She says she refuses to work more than 30 hours a week. She also has a sister that died from cancer.

Getting back to the pros - she beat cancer! She goes to alternative healing people, people who help her with life. She says all of this contributes to her feeling good.

Having cancer pushed her to this. She took care of herself before cancer, I thought, as she always took a bath every night and didn't let anything get in the way of her bath.

She still does that but now she says she really takes good care of herself. All of her tips helped me and her. A definite pro of cancer.

Pros for me in dealing with non-Hodgkins lymphoma at the end of 2012 and 2013:

1) Early menopause... 59, rather than in my 60s, as the gynecologist predicted. 2) Being American Indian and seeing a medicine man, who diagnosed me and told me I would be okay. He advised me to continue taking the medicine he gave me when I was in the hospital. How did he know I would be in the hospital? And how did he know they wouldn't let me keep taking the medicine he gave me? 3) The oncologist with a sense of humor and so very smart. 4) Laughter and tears - our first two medicines 5) Reiki 6) Daughter being a nurse 7) Husband's love - he was by my side throughout, helping me with my recovery. 8) Friends - the support was outstanding. 9) Family - support was so important to me. 10) My hair grew back, except for the hair on my legs and underarms, which is a definite pro. 11) I lost some weight and kept some of it off. 12) I retired at 62, before I intended to and that has been a pro.

When speaking with a friend she shared that losing her dad to cancer brought her closer to her mom, more thoughtful and caring and she doesn't want to miss the important things in life as she recognized when her dad died when she was so young that death can happen and so make the most of today.

She spoke of her friend who got breast cancer at a young age and how her friend made some healthy decisions about how she would live her life from then on and how she is still working on those decisions now some twenty years after the cancer.

All of my friends' comments have helped me to do whatever I can to work to prevent cancer from reoccurring for me and for others, where possible.

My husband's two aunts died of cancer. His one aunt had mouth cancer and never smoked cigarettes and was not living with secondhand smoke! When I asked them if they cried they said no as did their husbands. I told them about the importance of laughter and tears.

They told me that they thought their sister would die several times. She had polio and came so close to death and cried easily all the time they said. She was still living in 2016 when I retired. She died a few years ago now at an older age.

Of all the people I spoke with, very few ever disagreed with me but there were a couple. I didn't know them well enough to disagree with them and thought that it didn't matter as there were so many more people who agreed with how they didn't cry when I asked them.

A classmate hadn't gotten a check-up since her youngest daughter was born and her daughter was a pre-teen. I encouraged her until she went in for a check-up and ended up with cancer and had a hysterectomy. She went into early menopause and is alive today.

Her sister died from cancer and many others in her family had other cancers. We were born three days apart, were friends in middle school and high school, are in recovery together, and are having lunch this week to celebrate our birthdays. Another pro.