Being diagnosed can extend your life because you can now start the battle.
It’s going to be hard, dealing with the unfamiliar world of advanced stage cancer. Your health, and even your life, depends on it. The vocabulary is different; expectations are different—all along with underlying fear. Taking time to educate yourself will not only reduce fear, but will help you survive longer. Read all you can and speak with others who have already walked the path. Ask questions; examine options; get second and third opinions; carefully choose which doctors you bring on to your team. Finally, always remember that over your life’s journey, cancer is little more than a rock, or perhaps just a pebble, on the path.
Many of us find that when we have been given a cancer diagnosis we spend more time thinking about life. Not bad idea.
You have more time than you think. Never allow artificial time limits to pressure you into making decisions you are not yet comfortable making. Take all the time necessary to learn all you can so that all your decisions are the best-informed ones you can make. Except for the most aggressive cancers you have ample time to educate yourself as much as possible so that you are able to make good decisions.
Once you have made an informed decision and carried it out, never look back. Looking back in regret about what is past is pointless and will only drive you crazy. The path is always forward: continue to learn about your disease and always look ahead. What counts is today and what lies in the future.
Yesterday is gone, so forget it.
If you educate yourself as completely as possible and you took the time you needed, you will always know that no matter the outcome of a particular choice, you made the best possible decision. That knowledge that you have thought your decisions through carefully is what is really important—and may be more important than the decision itself. An occasional “pity party” might be healthy as long as it is only occasiona