When I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago, I reacted like most people who receive a cancer diagnosis. The first thing that came to mind was a death sentence. However, I found out later that it was truly an awakening for me, even after being diagnosed with colon cancer a few years later.
I asked God, “Why would you do this to me?” What had I done in life to have this placed upon me? But instead of bemoaning my fate, I decided to look for the positive side of it. There has to be a reason for it all.
I also realized that I was about to gain a new beginning, new hope, and a whole new prospective on life. When I think of the “gift of life” that was given to me, I know that I will gain strength from all my experiences. Even with the complications I now have to live with, I still feel truly blessed. For a while, I wasn’t happy with the way I looked after my surgery and the pain I had to endure each day, but I decided to snap out of it. I thought about the individuals who are no longer among us. I also realized that there will always be someone worse off than I am. I reminded myself that I still have my life.
One day I experienced something of a miracle and felt the compulsion to write it down. I turned that experience into a poem and I called it, “Peace.” Writing has become therapy for me. I took that poem, along with many others I had composed during my breast cancer period and placed them into book form. I was blessed enough to have that book, entitled True Simple Poems of Life, Faith and Survival, published. I am hoping that anyone who has the opportunity to read my poems gets something out of what I placed in all of them. My poems are from the heart, as real as any could ever be. Through my poetry, I wish to move people to the point that they can develop the strength to embrace life in a whole new way. I never anticipated becoming a writer, I just became one. I truly believe that when you survive a tragedy or a horrible disease such as cancer, it is for a reason, and I want to live to find out exactly what that reason is for me.
I recently had another inspirational book, entitled If Only I Could Fly, said Mattie-bee, published, and I am working on my third. I am all about inspiration now. I would have never become a writer, producing inspirational poems and stories, had I not gone through all that I did. I am living proof that you can survive cancer not once, but twice, providing you catch it in time, have faith and allow that faith to direct your path. I am not saying all will be easy, but you must believe.
Karen Rice currently lives Houston, Texas. Later in life after having a head-on collision with not only breast cancer but colon cancer, her experience became “an awakening.” Through her writing, she now shares her experience with others.