The Sun Eventually Sets

I spent September 12th to the 14th at The Crossings in Austin. Above is a picture of the sun setting and depicts the beauty of The Crossings. It's hard to believe that The Crossing is about 10 minutes from my house. Planet Cancer, www.planetcancer.org, hosted a retreat for those that are 25 to 40. A little history about Planet Cancer is that it was started several years ago when Heidi Adams was diagnosed in her late twenties and had no one to reach out to. They focus on an online forum and retreats to support those that were diagnosed in their 20's and 30's.

Let me back track a bit. I work and support the Pink Ribbon Cowgirls www.pinkribboncowgirls.org or www.pinkribboncowgirls.ning.com through the Breast Cancer Resource Centers of Texas www.bcrc.org. The PRCowgirls are close to 100 amazing women. I love what I do. I support newly diagnosed women and women that are further out of treatment. I coordinate activities for our group and I manage the online forum. I get a great deal out of it and so do the women I support. However, some personal events have happened to me in the past year that I will blog about in a later time. From this I realized that I needed support for myself and to start taking care of me.

Heidi and I have been trying to touch basis for some time now. We finally connected and there I was all signed up to go on the retreat. The retreat was great. There were 30 some young cancer survivors from all over the US there. There were breast cancer survivors to melanoma survivors. There were people from stage I to stage IV to incurable. It was a very humbling experience to be around everyone. There were many tears the were shed but spirits were high and there were also a great deal of laughing and joking around.

One of the most powerful thing for me was our last day there on Sunday. Heidi walked a group of us to the labyrinth. It was time for reflection. It was a time for us to reflect on the grief we have experience for our self and those that we care about. It was time to remember those that we have lost along the way to cancer, a horrible disease. She asked us to take as much time as we needed. From there, we were to choose an object we found on the grounds and then to walk the labyrinth. Once we reach the center of the labyrinth, we were to place the object we picked up in the center.

I grieved for the devastating changes it has done to me both physically and emotionally. Cancer has changed my life in many ways. There have been both positive and negative changes. It has changed my relationship with my body, food, friends and significant other. I grieved for those that I support that have recurrence or metastatic cancer. I grieved for the new friends that I met that had an incurable cancer.

Cancer is removed through surgery. The hair grows back after chemo. Cancer "goes away" but the stigma never leaves. Grieving is a normal process. I've learned to allow myself to grieve more.