The Path to Freedom

I thought that the fact that we've been friends for years would prepare me for what was to come when you told me you had feelings for me. I thought I knew you like the back of my hand. I thought that you were someone I could confide in. I thought you were someone I could trust, but boy was I wrong.  You made me feel safe. When my life fell apart, and I didn't have anywhere to turn, somehow you were just there. It was so easy to talk to you. You were always saying that you would always be there, and there was just something about the way you said it that made me trust it.  You would text me most days and check in, and that made me develop these feelings that I wasn't ready to have. You would come in telling me how amazing you thought I was, and how you had always had feelings for me, and something about that made me want to feel too. And so eventually instead of building up my walls, I let them fall, and that was my biggest mistake.  You were special to me

You get diagnosed with a disease, and suddenly the world begins to collapse from underneath you. You're in denial. You're emotions are intensified and you're trying so hard to figure out what you're next move is, right?  But as the time passes by and you have a plan, the depression hits you. But this isn't like normal depression, it's different. It's a depression caused from living in the uncontrollable fear that you're going to die. It sucks you in. It takes you over, and you're paralyzed.  At least that's how it is for me. I'm living this life that I don't recognize. And the worst part is that I've never been more alone. I wake up every fucking day wondering what I'm living for. What's the point? Where am I going? I try so hard to be a good person, to try to help out, but when it's never good enough, how do you go on from that? I'm a prisoner in my own body and mind and I can't escape. I have the words to

Dear You, It's been a while since I've said anything about the preposterous accusations and lies that you've been spreading about me for the last several months. You see, when I heard the things you were saying, deep down I wanted to say so much about it. I wanted to defend myself, and prove each and every one of you wrong because I have the ability to do so. I have the proof. I have the signatures. I have the video footage to just be able to prove that all you've been spreading are lies. But I didn't and I have stayed silent through this entire mess.  You might wonder why I just sat around and did nothing when I had the chance to clear my name, my reputation. Well here's your explanation, after all this time. Not that you deserve one.   I'm a twenty four year old adult, and I owe nothing to anyone. I answered your accusations with silence because at the end of the day, what do I lose? A few "friends"? I'm not worried about the fact

Like any other person at the age of twenty three years old, I believed myself to be invincible. I thought that if I could pretend hard enough that cancer the cancer didn't exist that it would eventually just disappear on it's own.  I was young, and naive, and to be quite honest the only thing that I was concerned about was work, and maintaining my life.  Silly right? I find out that I have cancer, and the first that came to mind was work.  The thing was, I thought I could handle it on my own. I thought if I could deny it, that maybe somehow it wouldn't be true. I mean, I felt find physically most of the time, other than the migraines, and I just wasn't ready to give up my life. The life I had worked so hard to achieve was finally in my grasp and I knew once I accepted that I was sick, everything had to change, but I wasn't ready for that.  So, for the first few months, I pretended I was fine,  and went on my way to my life. I did this until I physically just co

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I didn't tell anyone. I was going through so much at the time, and apart of me just wanted to pretend like it wasn't real. And I had done that for what seems like a long time. Deep down, I knew I needed to act, but I felt like maybe I had done something to deserve all the bad things that were happening in my life, and with that I embraced the fact that I was going to die. I accepted it, and there was nothing that was going to stop me from living my life on my terms. Eventually, I came to my senses, and I talked options with my doctor. I'm not going to bore you with the same old story of the cancer like I tend to do with every other article I've written on this blog.  Today, I wanted to talk about something different.  Back in August of 2016, I met a girl named Kelsey Hart. She had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I can't go into details about her situation because I'm trying to respect her privacy, but I met her a

 In your life you'll realize that somewhere in the world there is a person who is unhappy with their own life, and so they start spreading hate, and drama in someone Else's life. And if you're lucky, that life will be yours. I was struggling through chemo the very first time I was accused of lying about my disease. I never got a legit reason for why I was accused of lying, just the fact that I didn't provide proof. To me, that was so incredibly ridiculous. I mean, I was a twenty three year old adult, why should I have to provide proof to prove to someone that I was indeed sick? Why should anyone? I wasn't a child in need of help. I was a full grown independent adult, I owed nothing to anyone. The thing is, I don't understand how someone could wake up one day and pretend to be ill. What do they get out of it? I mean, I was living a pretty awesome life before i got sick, and I lost it all when I had to quit my job after I fell ill. It baffles me to this day t

For the past year of my life, you have controlled me in ways that I'm ashamed to admit. I never saw you coming, but I hate everything that comes along with you. I never imagine that something so awful like this could happen, but I guess no one ever dies, right? I find myself longing to just be free of you. I want more than anything to go back to who I was before you came into my life. I can feel myself changing from the inside out. I don't laugh the same anymore. I don't see the good in everything the way I once did. I'm more sad than I used to be, and I hate that. I feel like you've taken a huge part of me. There was once a time in my life when I had everything. I had a great job. My own car. Great friends. It's not that I don't have those things anymore, but I can feel the changes in it all. I see people look at me and I'm not me anymore. They can't see past the cancer and that kills me inside. But today is the day I stand

Getting diagnosed with cancer was never part of my plan, I mean, it's cancer. I don't think anyone really ever wakes up and says I'm going to get cancer. It's just some tragic thing that happens to the best of us. It changes our entire lives.  I think when you're diagnosed with an illness,  you're ready for a lot to happen. You get this idea of all the expectations that are coming your way. I was ready for a lot, but I was never ready to be accused of lying about very, most important thing in my life. The first person to ever accuse me of lying was someone in my own family.  I have a very toxic family and so I guess on some level I wasn't as surprised as I should've been.  It was normal for my family to cut me down, and to make it about them. I wasn't ready for my friends to believe their lies. You see, when I first diagnosed with cancer, I didn't tell anyone for various reasons. The main one being that I wasn't ready to accept it. I was

As humans, we don't want to think about the worst of things. We try to live our lives, taking each day and making the best of everything. We try to focus so much on our day to day lives, even the littlest things because that's all we know how to do. We paint a beautiful masterpiece to escape to so we don't have to accept the inevitable, which is death. I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of twenty three and it was the first time in my life that I was actually faced with the reality that I'm not invincible and that some day I will die.  I felt as if I was on the brink of death, staring it in the face. Death was standing before me at such a young age, and I felt the anger, the darkness in my heart coming to the surface. I spent so many nights being angry at the world, trying to find the meaning of life. I was a twenty three year old woman with a broken spirit and an undeserving diagnosis I couldn't seem to accept.  I couldn't accept the fact that I was being

You. Have. Cancer. Those three words are the very words that both changed and destroyed my life forever. I was twenty-three years old when I first heard that word pertaining to myself. I was sitting in the emergency after a series of multiple tests the physician assistant had ordered be ran on me. At the time, I told her she was ridiculous, and they were wasting time and insurance money running all those tests because I was just fine. I convinced myself I was just stressed out and tired. I sat there, zoning out as the doctor and physician assistant before me started talking options with me. I remember hearing the words surgery, oncology and radiation. I don’t know if I was in shock, or truly just didn’t want to believe it, but I refused to accept what they had said. I asked to be discharged and I left. I made an appointment with my primary physician and got the same news. I got another opinion, and then one more after that before I finally just said okay, well maybe I’m the on

“You have cancer” These are the words that no one ever expects to hear. You think that this could never happen to you. As humans, especially when we are young, we think we’re invincible. We convince ourselves that nothing bad will ever happen us because we’re so young and have our entire lives ahead of us. We’re naive enough to start to believe that nothing can touch us. The thing is though, we are human. Life doesn’t discriminate, and bad things do happen. I was twenty-three years old when I was diagnosed with stage III Anaplastic Astrocytoma, or as most people know it as, Glioblastoma. I remember so vividly sitting in the doctors office, it was a Wednesday afternoon, three o'clock. It was a sunny day and I remember blowing off work for the appointment because I could no longer stand the pain.  Before that day, I was just a normal twenty four year old stressing out money, being independent and all of the many bills I had to pay, but since that day I've felt mysel

“Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.” You hear these five words often when people talk about the five stages of grief. I’m going to talk to you today in this article about those five stages, but not in regards to a death, or someone I love being sick. I’m going to talk to you about the five stages of grief in regards to my own terminal illness. Denial When I found in May of 2016 that I had stage three glioblastoma, so many thoughts ran through my head. So many feelings. My first reaction though was denial. I left the doctor’s office in pure denial .I pretended for weeks that it wasn’t happening. I pretended that they were wrong. I told myself that there was no way that this was happening to me, it couldn’t be. I was twenty three, I was too young. So I tried going on with my life, ignored the calls from my doctor, and went on living my life. Until I couldn’t anymore. I couldn’t handle the fact that something like this had actually happened to me. I couldn’t

“Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.” If you know this quote, then you have been one of the many who’ve read or watched the heartbreaking book or movie, The Fault In our Stars. I use this quote today because it is very fitting for the situation I’ve been facing for the past year of my life. It describes in so many ways how I’ve felt about everything that life has thrown at me with dealing with Glioblastoma, stage III. Also known as an   Anaplastic Astrocytoma. I’ve never really been the kind of person who’s ever got personal with my writing. I’ve written novels about people who aren’t real. I’ve written articles on puckermob about things I see in everyday life, but never have I ever been this personal when it comes to writing. Until I got cancer, anyway. I find that I have so much to say these day