A New Year and a new beginning

Posted by Denise @denisestlouie, Jan 1 7:05am

Today I'm signed up to meet for the first time with a group from the Meetup app. That's an app that allows groups to form and for random people to sign up for events and meet new people. The application has been around for 20 years. I just found out about it in 2024 because my daughter uses it and she's doing all kinds of fun things. This group is called St Louis Healthy Experiences. They meet up once or twice a month for different types of experiences. This month we are going on a 5 mile hike and we will be celebrating dry January by meeting up at non-alcoholic brewery.

This group started a few months ago and I signed up immediately, but I never attended an event. I felt to bald and embarrassed about my health situation. I'm really embarrassed to have had these illnesses. I feel flawed and imperfect and I don't want to be seen.

Well I can't stay this way the rest of life. I'm also dealing with a failing relationship so I need to expand my social networks.

I've decided I no longer have the luxury of just making due. I have to live my life for me. I am making huge changes in the hope I can create a healthy environment within my body and home where cancer has a hard time surviving. I think there are enough examples of people who were able to live long after being given a very poor prognosis for their cancer. I also think there is enough information based on some research that show that what I do going forward will influence my future outcomes for both cancer and Crohn's disease. I believe I have a path for staying healthy. It's not an easy path or one I've ever followed before, but I'm committed to being alive 10 to 20 years from now.

I looked up the survival rate for uterine serous cancer stage 3. It's dismal at best. The 5 year servival rate is only 55%. The 10 year servival is 0 - 15%. Well I intend to be in that 0-15%. I believe the chemotherapy is not enough alone to cure this cancer. It's going to take a healthy lifestyle to get me over the that line. I believe it's possible.

I am so f#$@ing mad! I didn't do anything to deserve this fate. I've lived a good life. I'm not a drug user and I drank but not to the point that it should effect my health. My parents are still living. They both smoked they don't have cancer. What did I do to be in this place!

It's all up to me. It's all about me going forward.

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Gynecologic Cancers Support Group.

val64 | @val64 | Jan 1 9:35am

Didn't your Mom tell you that life isn't fair? It's not like anyone else deserved to get cancer either.

Denise | @denisestlouie | Jan 1 12:15pm

In reply to @val64 "Didn't your Mom tell you that life isn't fair? It's not like anyone else deserved to..." + (show)

No she didn't

gynosaur42 | @gynosaur42 | Jan 2 9:27am

Hi Denise,

I can relate to your anger in the moments you were posting yesterday. It’s frightening (and unfair) that cancer, its severity and mortality are all so random in our lives and around us. This anger can feel intense, and can even percolate under the surface for a long time.

You are doing amazing things to try to take control of what you can, and to ensure, to whatever degree possible, that you will reach the goal you wrote about in what was the first post of yours that I read, of being present, as healthy as possible and a resource in your daughter’s life for as long as possible. My kudos to you for stepping up this way. I hope that your actions bring you some comfort or at least temporary respite from the anger, fear and any discomfort or pain you experience.

With gratitude,

Gynosaur

Denise | @denisestlouie | Jan 2 10:51am

In reply to @gynosaur42 "Hi Denise, I can relate to your anger in the moments you were posting yesterday. It’s..." + (show)

Thank you. 😢 This is how I feel at the moment. It seems like impossible goals.

Turkey | @tomrennie | Jan 2 12:23pm

In reply to @denisestlouie "Thank you. 😢 This is how I feel at the moment. It seems like impossible goals." + (show)

They are what you believe. If you believe they are impossible, then they are. Choose for them to be possible and try your best to make them possible. It is a choice.

Denise | @denisestlouie | Jan 2 12:42pm

In reply to @tomrennie "They are what you believe. If you believe they are impossible, then they are. Choose for..." + (show)

I am. It's that I won't be able to be 100% even 80%

Is it like being in college and passing grades are enough?

Turkey | @tomrennie | Jan 2 12:47pm

In reply to @denisestlouie "I am. It's that I won't be able to be 100% even 80% Is it like..." + (show)

To me, 100% is the amount of effort and commitment that you give. Not a test score.

lmcl | @lmcl | Jan 5 7:15am

Yep. This sucks. None of us "deserve" this.

Colleen Young, Connect Director | @colleenyoung | 2 days ago

In reply to @lmcl "Yep. This sucks. None of us "deserve" this." + (show)

Hi @lmcl, reading your profile bio makes your statement all the more hard hitting. No one deserves cancer and it sucks. You've been handed a double and triple whollop with caring for your husband as he was treated (successfully) for primary CNS lymphoma. And now you're on the patient side dealing with endometrial cancer late recurrence in lungs.

What treatment are you having? How are you doing?