Two doctors have said these four words to me recently. Four quite simple words, but words that are extremely loaded.
“Go live your life”
Go live my life? What exactly does that mean?
When every part of your being is thrust full-time into doctors appointments, and treatments being told when everything is done to “go live your life” is confusing, scary and complicated.
How do I just go and live my life? There isn’t a simple formula for breast cancer patients to just pick up their life from where they left off. The reality is, I can’t just pick up my life where I left off. My life as I knew it was interrupted. Ruined. I can never go back to March 2015. I left my job so I don’t have a job to go back to. I’m tired and exhausted from everything that has happened to me. I see my life differently now than I did a mere 10 months ago. My goals and priorities have changed. There are things that I want to do, places that I want to go to because you never know what tomorrow is going to bring.
Living your life is scary. Where I use to find comfort in seeing a nurse or a doctor on a regular basis, my appointments are now spaced out and will soon become twice yearly visits. It’s scary when you know the stats of a cancer recurrence and it metastasizing. A pain is no longer a pain. I worry with each thing that feels wrong in my body that g-d forbid something may be wrong again. And as much as I worry about that, I can’t let those feelings overwhelm me and take over because then I won’t be living. I’ll just be worrying.
So for now I’m just taking time. Time to rest, relax, regain my energy and figure out where I go from here. Where as I use to focus on money, job satisfaction and working the regular 9-5, I’m now asking myself much deeper questions. Questions about who I am at the core of my being. Who exactly is Renee Kaiman? What makes me happy? How can I make a difference in the world? Hopefully with time it will all become clear, and I will create my new path.
So as terrifying as the doctors orders are, I’m going to follow them and go live my life as best as I can.
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