Cancer Made an Optimist Out of Me

Jen Singer wrote to me -- and I was deeply touched and inspired by her story of how she bounced back stronger, wiser, happier from cancer -- and so I am sharing her story below.

If you have an inspiring "bounce back story" you want to share, please write to me. My email is my first name with that little "a" thingie then notsalmon with com preceded by a dot. (Sorry, trying to avoid spam spiders!)

I am definitely looking for inspiring bounce back stories because in May/June I have a new book coming out - THE BOUNCE BACK BOOK - with a red rubber cover on the outside and inside tips on how to thrive in the face of adversity, setbacks, losses, rejection, failure, illness, divorce, assault, bankrupcy - you name it.

I will be visiting 15 cities -- and would love to meet you when on on tour.

And please write to me and share your motivational stories of bouncing back --and I will post them on this site to share with others -- so your story will help folks have true hope that no matter what happens in life, the best is truly yet to come!

Okay...with this in mind, here's Jen Singer...Take it away, Jen!

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Cancer Made an Optimist Out of Me

I was always a sort-of glass-half-empty kind of person. If I didn’t get my hopes up too high, I thought, the subsequent rejection, defeat or disappointment wouldn’t hurt as much.

And then I got cancer.

I had four chapters left to write of my book, You’re a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren’t So Bad Either) when I found out I had an aggressive form of non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I would undergo chemotherapy, with two of the six rounds as grueling five-day infusions in the hospital where my 82-year-old roommate would stop by my bed to shake her head and lament, “So young. So young.” I was 40, and I had a cancer most common in 65-year-old men.

I could have ditched the book and hidden all summer while other people cooked for my family and took care of my kids, but I didn’t. I’m still not exactly sure why. I know that it was important to “stay strong for the kids,” as people had advised me. Frankly, I just didn’t want to be the one to ruin their childhood. So, we watched HGTV together and played board games – ironically, the game of Life.

When my doctor told me our goal was to cure me of cancer, I went into overdrive. As the well wishes, flowers, brownies and dinners rolled in, I felt like Luke Skywalker in that scene in Star Wars where everybody scrambles into X-fighters and the Millennium Falcon to go take on the Evil Empire. Together, we were going to destroy the Death Star. I was going to put up a fight.

By the time I finished chemo and then radiation last fall, my glass had gone from half-empty to half-full.

“You handled it better than everyone around you,” my brother told me at lunch one day in December.

A few weeks later, I got the news: I was in remission. Goodbye, Death Star.

But remission is not a cure, and I’ve got PET scans every three months this year and plenty of blood tests, check-ups and fear. I’ve got a one in four chance of recurrence, and yet, I feel hopeful. Even if it does come back, I’m going to put up a fight – again.

For now, I’m busy with my book signings and media appearances for my new book – the one I finished in the chemo chair – which was published this month. Cancer, it seems, made an optimist out of me. Maybe it doesn’t matter why.

-- Jen Singer
author of You’re a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren’t So Bad Either) and the creator of MommaSaid.net. She blogs about parenting and cancer for Good Housekeeping.com and Yahoo Shine. Check out her book trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRMwuaHi2S4