Cancer Helped Me See the Life I Prayed For

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When eating, walking and bathing became difficult after cancer, my daughter stepped in. I was proud of who she had become.

Image of a mug next to a sign that says "One day at a time."

When Pam was told she had AML, she initially wondered if she had been a good person to the people around her.

The moment you hear you have cancer. The moment you hear you have leukemia. The moment when you hear you have acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The moment you hear you may have mutations. The moment you hear you have the FLT3 mutation. The moment they tell you because you have x, y and that is why you are now a high-risk leukemia patient.

You begin to wonder; you desperately need to ponder: Have I done enough? Have I been a good daughter? Sister? Mother? Friend? Wife? Therapist, etc.? You feel the need to hurl yourself out of the past and into the present and run as fast as you can to get as much done before time runs out.

You privately vow to yourself you will do x, y and z and start on your bucket list while you are still here. The challenge is to select what is most important that is near and dear to your heart. That is where you must start. You may think it is a choice, but those moments will start to leak out of you when you least expect it.

The pivotal experience that shaped my perspective on life was while I was in the throes of induction chemo. It all was new and scary to me with so many new things to learn. The unease over if I ever get to do and say what I need to say was ever looming.

I didn’t really know how and when to start. It occurred to me it was the time when I was so weak and sick. I had been instructed that the three things I needed to do each day to have a chance of survival were:

I had to eat
I had to walk
I had to bathe.

I wanted to do everything they said I should do, so I did as I was told, until I was too sick to eat, too weak to walk alone and too weak to bathe myself.

Without hesitation, my daughter was by my side each step of the way. She would get down to her underwear and sit on the shower bench and hold me up while she bathed my battle-worn body. When she returned me to my bed, I saw my daughter through the eyes of who I always hoped her to be. This compassionate act assured me I had raised a wonderful being in my daughter as well as in my son.

Prior to that, I was afraid they didn’t know how much I loved them. Did they love me? Did I do enough? That trepidation l had was lifted from my soul. I found peace in that moment. That was enough for me.

I had lived long enough to see the life I prayed for. My children had become wonderful people, parents, partners and had learned all the right virtues I wanted to instill in them. They were kind, empathetic, compassionate beings who would pass these virtues on without me physically being here. I could relax now knowing that I had really done enough. I have lived a full life and I was able to witness that through the loving acts of my children.

And in that moment, I truly started living.

This post was written and submitted by Pam Wilson. The article reflects the views of Wilson and not of CURE®. This is also not supposed to be intended as medical advice.

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