[2022-12-27] Just live
"Just live" is the motto of Michelle Hughes, a PEI woman with a rare form of cancer. It also applies to the fellow cancer thriver who sent me Michelle's story, which was featured in CBC News today. And it's something I tell myself when I experience doubts about my own future.
Michelle's cancer (Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma) affects people in different ways. Some people with the disease die within weeks or months of being diagnosed; others live for decades.
Michelle was diagnosed just after her third child was born and told that she had three years to live. But she refuses to be defined within a three-year lifetime. She's determined to "just live" and to do so for years to come. She gets scans every three months, is on experimental medication, and focuses on nutrition and exercise. She has found that being active reduces chronic inflammation, which can be a source of pain. She says, "Exercise is what I've quickly learned is my true medicine."
Michelle's oncologist, Dr. Abha Gupta, says, "You would never know watching her running down the street with her baby, or, you know, just taking care of her family and going about her day to day that she has, on paper, Stage 4 cancer."
I identify with Michelle's motto to "just live." I see it in my thriving friend, whose example inspired me to change the subtitle for Jenesis from living with ovarian cancer to living beyond ovarian cancer. I see it in the fellow cancer survivor who shared this quote with me early in my cancer journey: "Do not die while you are yet alive." By this, she meant do not focus on your possible death tomorrow and end up missing the potential of today. I see it in the oncology nurse who told me almost two years ago: "live your life."
Michelle suggests that everyone can apply the motto "just live" to their lives. "Time is a gift," she says, "nobody knows when their time is coming."
