I survived bone cancer. Although facing your mortality at 26 isn’t anything I’d wish on anyone, if there was a way to turn the perspective it forces upon you into a potion, I’d bottle it up and hand samples out on every street corner. Keep in mind that the perspective isn’t the same for everyone. Surviving is an experience and its effects vary as much as the people do. For me, these are the two most important lessons bone cancer forced me to learn the hard way:

Stop deferring good times.

I was twenty-six and had seven years left on my mortgage and managed to tuck money away for education and retirement. I steam-cleaned my carpets weekly and you could eat off my floors. I beamed with pride at how perfect my grout lines were and dreamed of the day I would taste financial freedom. But after being diagnosed with cancer I realized how stupid I had been. I had wasted every spare penny on paying down a loan and too much time washing my house. I should’ve taken more vacations and gone out to the movies more. I had nightmares about what my kids and husband would say after my death: “Thank god that mortgage is gone! Let’s eat off the floors now!” What I wanted them to say was: “I’m so glad we spent all that time together and travelled the world.” But the hardest thing to accept was that I wouldn’t even be there to hear what they would say because dead people can’t hear. The realization that I had spent so much time trying to be perfect and planning a future that I would never partake in hit me like a dumbbell in the face. That’s when I decided to do what some people call ‘living in the moment’ and I call ‘being proactive about your happiness.’ Yes, I still pay my bills on time. But nowadays I’m more careful about how I spend my time and who with, and less focused on grout lines and how I spend my money.

The mind is a powerful instrument and it can convince you of anything, even against your own will.

I was convinced I was dying and there wasn’t a thing anyone could’ve said to convince me otherwise. My cancer had a 95% survival rate yet I hyper focused on the 5% chance that I might die. I was so convinced, in fact, that I had planned my own funeral right down to the outfit I wanted to be buried in. Today, over a decade since my diagnosis, I wish I could tell you the I’m-gonna-die feeling is completely gone. It’s not. Sometimes I relapse. My follow-ups include a chest x-ray and without fail an unstoppable panic rises inside of me as I wait for my results. When I get a tooth ache I don’t assume I have a cavity; my mind says ‘you’re dying of tooth cancer.’ I’ve had my pinky finger x-rayed twice because I was afraid I had pinky cancer and when I get the flu I picture my lungs bursting with tumors. These relapses remind me not to underestimate the power of my mind and I try to put these reminders to good use. If I can be convinced that I’m dying when I’m not, then surely I can convince myself to be happy even during dark days. Some time ago I made a decision to be happy and I work on it every day.

I’ll be the first to admit that I often revert back to my old self (a lot, a lot, a lot). But lucky for me, cancer doesn’t actually go away and being in remission is a bit like being in permanent purgatory. Chronic pain from the absence of my bone and muscles serve as a daily reminder that I could’ve died and that is what gives me the courage to face life’s other challenges. When difficulties arise, I find myself saying, “I’ve had cancer, how much worse can things get?” It’s the experience which I use to measure all good and bad times against. Compared to cancer, unloading the dishwasher is really fun. And if I can make it through cancer then I can make it through anything. At least that’s what my mind has convinced me of. My mind always says, “You’re unbreakable. You got this.”

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