I always thought I understood resilience. Life has tested me more times than I can count—poverty, abuse, addiction, loss. I have fought through it all, clawing my way forward when the world told me to lie down and surrender. But nothing has tested me quite like this.

Stage 3 rectal cancer. A full APR surgery. A permanent colostomy. And now, I wait.

I hate waiting.

I wait for pathology reports to tell me if they got it all or if my war isn’t over yet.

I wait in the space between hope and fear, between the desperate wish to be free of this disease and the terrifying possibility that more battles lie ahead.

The anxiety creeps in at night, slipping under the covers with me, whispering worst-case scenarios into the darkness.  Last night I woke up multiple times having to coax myself back to sleep with meditation and breath work but the fear remains. What if it’s not gone? What if I have to endure more chemo, more sickness, more moments stolen from my life? I feel it in my bones, this longing for certainty, for a guarantee that I will have the future I am fighting for. I just need to know. But I am afraid to know.

But I will not give in to despair. I refuse.

I think of Dylan Thomas’ words: Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I am too young to surrender. I have too much future to live for. My children, my husband, my purpose. There is still so much laughter left in me, so many sunrises I want to see, so much love I still need to give and receive. Cancer may have taken my rectum, but it does not get to take my spirit. It does not get to take me.

After everything life has thrown at me, it would be so easy to slip into grief and anger, to scream why me? into the void. But that would only give cancer more of my life than it has already stolen. And I will not hand it over willingly.

So I sit with the fear, acknowledge it, and then I choose to keep moving forward. Whatever the pathology says, whatever comes next—I will meet it with the same fire that has carried me this far. I will rage against anything that tries to take me before I am damn well ready to go.

Because I am not done yet.

~ Michelle Budiwski

#MyCancerJourney #Resilience #DoNotGoGentle #Fighter #OstomyForLife #CancerSurvivor #StillStanding