By Stephanie Sanders — May 21, 2011 9:04pm

Chemo starts this week. Less than 3 days til another radical change in my life. No turning back.  Another crossroads of choosing into a cancer treatment not of my choosing.  Not that I don't agree that the drugs that I will be given are my best option at this point, but I agree only with the analytical part of my mind.  My prognosis is horrid with out Chemo and is still not great with it, but more women survive longer by taking it. I get it. It's just unimaginable to me at this point that I have to subject myself to drugs that will be killing me and saving me. I am still in an inescapable nightmare.  I have periods of joy, and I still love Jesus, but this is a nightmare.
Who in their 30s imagines their own death in any real sort of way? And yet now I imagine that I may not survive this thing. That I may live 5 or 10 years only to get a re-occurrence as so many with my type do.  Who in my shoes imagines themselves in the 60% who survive and doesn't shudder at the 40% who don't? And so I will take me medicine. I will drive myself, willingly, to Portland on Tuesday morning. I will watch as they "access" the port under the skin of my chest that connects to a catheter in my jugular, watch as they hook up the poison that will hopefully be my cure and I will live. I will live the best I know how and I will fight. Fight this cancer. Fight to find joy. Fight nausea & fatigue. Fight to laugh. Fight to keep my life, to keep the essence of it intact. Fight to feel and not shut off when I am so weary of it all. Fight to pray and stay to God and my source of peace. God grant me peace. Help me to pray when I don't have words. Help me.