I won't use the word surviver. I'm a surviver if I live through a tornado. In a tornado your passive. You cross your finger and pray that your shelter is enough. But with health issues and that is what cancer is a health issue, I am actively working to correct the problem. I'm not surviving. I'm fighting. I will fight nearly every day.

My parents named me Denise Louise. Denise derives from Dionysus the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. Louise is a worrier. I like to joke that I'm a Drunken Warrior. But it is the warrior that I identify most with. I have images of me as Zena the princesses warrior fighting for justice. In hard times I just turn to my Warrior and I fight like hell.

Everything I have done since the cancer diagnosis has been to preserve my warrior image. I tell few people of my situation. I don't want to be thought of as a cancer victim or survivor. I don't want people to know I'm a warrior either. I just want to be thought of as Denise. Caring, funny and fun Denise. Denise the goddess of festivities. Few people know my middle name. She is just for me. Louise is my strength. My secret weapon.

Things happen to people. That's the flaw of being human. So maybe I'm not a goddess really, but I bet you I'm a demigod.

Denise