16. A question for you and my opportunity

I'm following a blog called My Journey by Danielle Chase - she is in surgery right now in the US, maybe out of surgery. She has been through the mill with her emotions before her breast reconstruction. I know that come nearer the date I will start to become more emotional, maybe unsteady on my feet about it all but I will try not to think about all the little things. I think the little things can grow if you feed them. I have to stick to the basics. I am having a big 8 hour operation that will give me the rest of my life. That's it, that's all it is. But its not is it..its about my opportunity.

I thought long and hard about where I am going, what I will do with myself, how will I make the most of the opportunity that science has given me. I know that living with a high risk of getting cancer is not something most people even imagine. Most people just live their lives thinking it will never happen to them, that cancer is what other people get.

Where did cancer come from? Its not contagious like a cold..maybe its spent many thousands of years just killing random people but as it gets its arse kicked more often by surgeons and scientists, its found a way to keep going - its in the genes. Its not contagious, yet mine is, I got it from Mum and she got it from her Mum and she got it from her Mum..but where did it start? How many generations back? We will never know.

My question to you..

Would you cross a road if you had an 85% chance of getting knocked over?

Or, if the common cold became a killer disease and you had 85% chance of getting it but were told that you could chop your nose off and you would never get the killer cold..would you do it or would you live in fear?

I'm not chopping off my nose but its a pretty important part of your face, of your identity. I'm chopping off my breasts, those which help make me feel like a woman, my perfectly formed, pert breasts. I love them - they are great but I will be mutilating them soon, forever. Its not really an option, keeping them, not for me. I dream of the day when I can relax on the other side of this opportunity. Would you cross a road if you had an 85% chance of getting knocked over? If you had an 85% chance of winning the lottery, would you bet? What if you had a 15% chance?

Hmmm...that would make you think.

So, the opportunity to live..what shall I do with it? Well, I have decided. I am going to University. A second go at my life, free of my nagging cancer worry - a new start, a new career.

After leaving my great job as a Capacity Development Engineer for Orange back in 2003, job life in Devon has been dull. I left a career but I was so blinded by grief that I just took off to lick my wounds and left it behind. I have mourned for that job but I am back, my brain is back, my future is back. Its time to move on, to get on the career train again.

Lets go!