by Susan Lugo
My biggest most recent challenge
has been ovarian cancer.
Oh, if only I could rewrite
this part of my story.
I feel so sorry that my doctors and I
dropped the ball;
that I was so stoic I didn’t realize
how sick I really was.
How could I have let my body down to such a degree
that I came very near death?
How could my doctors not have recognized
the connection between breast and ovarian cancer
and that we needed to probe more?
And what about my own body?
What is it like to learn that I have rogue DNA
that wants to take over me in the form of cancer?
I understand this, kind of, in my mind.
But I do not understand it in my heart, in my spirit.
My body and spirit are disconnected on this.
I am me, my Self, my essence, my divine core, my Susan.
My Susan is not my body – it can’t be
because my body accommodates cancer and my
Susan/mind/spirit/essence does not.
I am not cancer.
I am life and light and energy and beauty and love
and giving and joy and delight and gratitude.
I am not cancer.
My body is strong.
I have a strong centered, positive mind.
I have strong muscles and organs that work well.
I have a good immune system that fights off germs.
My senses are sharp.
I exercise and move and dance and have energy.
I am not cancer.
Cancer is incompatible with who I am.
Yet I must accept that I get it, and that
I have the seedlings in me for it to grow again.
But I am not cancer.
I am Susan, now and forever.
I am so much more than cancer.
Cancer is a cell within me;
cancer has the ability to grow and kill me;
I don’t know what triggers it to do that.
I know I have a mutation that makes it likely
that it will be triggered again.
It is a latent force inside my cells that is very powerful
and I respect it for the power it has.
But cancer is not me.
I am a beautiful white light emanating magnificent colors
that glow and flow and amplify and spread with the winds of life.
I am a huge organism of radiant energy and life,
with a body that works with the medicine it is given to kill off the rogue cells,
to restore health to a weakened body,
to shore up the immune system to do what it needs to do,
is meant to do –
to attack and dispose of those errant cells.
I have the ability to do this with medicine’s help,
with God’s help.
I am Susan, I am strong, I am pure essence and light.
I am not cancer. I am me.
Bio: Susan Lugo — Retired elementary school teacher of 30+ years. Mother of two grown sons, grandmother of two little girls. Newly married. Three=time cancer survivor; two Stage 1 breast cancers twelve years apart, and most recently Stage IIIC ovarian cancer. Grateful for modern medicine and for this wonderful life.
