"Live Life Urgently"

This blog is something that has been a long time coming in my life. I have been studying and learning and trying my best to acquire some type of information that might be helpful to someone else out there in my situation. I finally decided to create this blog when I realized that there is no magic healing information and I will never know enough to feel useful. I had to come to the understanding that the point of a blog is to share what you know, even if it isn't a lot, in the context of what you've gone through. Sometimes experiences help even more than book knowledge can, and experiences are something I have a lot of.

So for my first entry, the knowledge I'd like to pass along is something I learned back in 2006 but never really fully understood until I was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. Shortly after Steve Irwin's death in 2006 I saw an interview with his wife Terri and she said something about him that stuck with me. She said that he always lived his life urgently... if someone came up with an idea, or someone wanted to go do something, he wanted to do it immediately... there was no waiting with him. He lived urgently. She said he did this because he always knew that at any moment his life could be taken from him and he never wanted any regrets. As quirky as he might have been, it was evident that he lived his life exactly like that... urgently and with no regrets.

When I found out I had cancer that interview was constantly on my mind. I didn't know how long I had and I wanted to live the rest of my life with no regrets. I wanted to take advantage of every opportunity presented to me as well as focus on what was truly important to me (this will be a later entry because the things you think are important drastically change when you get cancer... a lot to say about that). I wanted to live my life urgently.

That was easier said than done, I found out. There are too many bills to think about (especially after cancer) and jobs and school... the things that matter easily get pushed aside. But I have tried, and am still trying, to live my life to the fullest the way Steve Irwin did. This blog is another baby step for me. Cancer awareness is something I'm passionate about and desperately want to be involved in, so this is my way of doing just that. I hope that here you will find a few answers, even if not many, but most importantly I hope you will find comfort. You are not alone and through cancer you might be surprised to discover how many new friends you will make. Good luck with your own journey, and I hope you enjoy reading about mine.