When sat relaxing in my bath full of lavender bubbles before bed one night a thought came into my head.

Is my life better since I was diagnosed with cancer or worse?

My first thought was of all the tears and heartbreak it has caused not only for me but for close friends and family.

The many friends I’ve made who have, along the way, lost their lives to cancer and I’ve had to say goodbye to attending many funerals all over the North West.

The continuous stream of hospital appointments when, once upon a time, I had never been in a hospital apart from the birth of my 2 children and when visiting others.

The operations I’ve had and the physical pain I’ve endured afterwards.

But more than anything the mental pain I’ve suffered through worry and fear, often feeling like a lost and lonely child abandoned in a forest at night, scared for her life and the unknown that lies ahead, frightened she will never be able to find her way home again to see her children.

So following my first thought, the answer to that question would have definitely been ‘worse’.

But then my mind started drifting off to the time when Carl booked a last minute trip to Lapland, and just a couple of weeks later we were flying, at the crack of dawn, with two very excited 4 and 6 year olds to ‘see Father Christmas in the North Pole’.

And then to the time I’d had the determination and courage to fly alone to Brazil and meet a lovely kind hearted man who called me his Golden Angel and whom I jokingly called Hef after Hugh Hefner.

As I lay there relaxing I began to smile, remembering my plane journey to West Palm Beach, Florida to visit a raw food institute in search of a cure, and meeting a wonderful lady on the connecting flight who I still keep in touch with and am proud to call my friend.

She worked alongside a top US oncologist who would later email his recommendations in my treatment plan.

She was also extremely intuitive and told me she could see I was going to be ok. However I needed to get rid of all this worry that was surrounding me.

I enrolled in a Nutritional healing course in Manchester and went on to do the advanced level, learning so much about how important certain foods are to our health and how certain foods can either hinder or help our wellbeing.

Everything I did, I did with full force and commitment never questioning that it wouldn’t make me better and take away the cancer and when it didn’t I researched something else and threw myself into the my next objective.

Everything I did I could not have paid for without the generosity of the Rainbow Ball donations and although nothing has worked to alleviate the cancer from the alternative world they have all helped me in more ways than I can mention, giving me the most important thing (and the reason I believe I am still alive) and that is HOPE, something the doctors often unwittingly take away.

In hindsight I would have never read the books I’ve read and learnt about how to love and embrace life if it wasn’t for cancer.

Because of cancer I now take dance lessons and am in my element performing in front of a mirror in an empty room alongside my dance teacher Becci.

Something I missed out on as a child (but found often in front of a mirror after wandering off in Marks and Spencer’s when I was about 4 years old).

I’d have never learnt how to meditate and how to stop my mind from racing, knowing the true art of relaxation, if it wasn’t for cancer.

I’d have never written blogs, helping the hundreds of people reading them by allowing the readers into my life and exposing my darkest moments and feelings… letting them know that they are not alone.

So now when I have those moments of feeling worthless, I remember all I have achieved and am still achieving, and I change to feeling purposeful again.

Writing this blog and having the Warrington Guardian’s support allowing me to publish online has given me a platform to reach many more people than I first anticipated (writing it alone in my bedroom after being told that nobody would be interested in anything I had to say).

I did it to unburden the fear sitting heavily on my shoulders. I have always written from the heart and from how I’m feeling in that moment.

In this moment, I am feeling blessed for what cancer has brought me but persecuted by the torment it brings others and still unable to comprehend what makes me any different?

Inflammatory breast cancer, although very aggressive and fast spreading, has given me time to assess my life, make changes, teach my children the true gift of life, live in the now, love harder and forgive easier and still it remains (in the skin on my arm yet stable).

So every time my mind strays, it is there to remind me to enjoy what time I have and to stop stressing.

If I’m being totally honest with myself I would never in a million years have asked for cancer but I guess it had to be severe to stop me in my tracks, to make me see sense and to stop me having doubts about myself, ultimately learning to love who I am.

It’s never too late to live your dream and follow your heart.

And remember, you are enough.

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Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here