@ronap- When I was first diagnosed with lung cancer (1977) I compared what I went through with others. I learned that it's not helpful because everyone is so individual that it's impossible. What might be devastating to one person may not to another with the same thing. I didn't need chemo or radiation with that one but it didn't make my cancer any more or less than anyone else. It made me lucky. And I thought that I was missing the whole show if I had had chemo!

I confused my emotional healing and growth by doing this. No one is really more or less better off or worse off than anyone else. We all suffer in our own way. The most difficult thing for me was feeling reduced by being ill after a very active life. As you said, "it's hard to feel reduced". But that's our perception of not being active. Being ill isn't reducing, it's just illness. Its life interrupted and reducing thoughts like this help us be more mindful and save our energy to healing.

My first cancer was a horrible, fast-growing, early cancer. Ten years later I had a second type of cancer that still plagues me to this day. When one of my lesions grows I have to slap my self-pity back down because I really need that energy. I am in a different world, one in which I need help, where I am the center of my need and if I don't pay attention then I won't be able to help later on.

Does this make sense?

Merry