A diagnosis

We never expect life to change for us. We always think things happen to other people and are unaware that we are not exempt.

It's hard to put into words the feeling of receiving a diagnosis. It's as if suddenly it started pouring rain after you went out with the bluest sky and 0% rain in the forecast. Suddenly, a million words begin rushing through your mind, thousands of questions with no answer. You are overwhelmed by the amount of information in your head that you had no clue about a day ago. New words that you can't even pronounce, medicines that you don't get what they do, body parts and names of doctors and specialists that you also had no clue were a thing. You have so much information, questions, and few answers that it is hard to know where to start. And probably one of the most central questions is: how long will this last? Among others, what do I need to do for it to pass? When can I eat sugar again? When can I get back to school/work? When can I work out again? And the most challenging answer to hear is: we don't know how long; it could be a month, a year, forever…

Looking back, I would have liked to know this when I got my diagnosis to learn to ration my energy and know where and on what I should focus it. I wish I did not 'waste' so much energy trying to save my past life instead of investing all that energy in this new life stage that lasted more than eight days. After the words: "you have cancer, a tumour, an autoimmune disease, some part of your body is on failure, etc." your life never goes back to being the same.

It is difficult to understand that our disease is a new reality and that perhaps it is not just passing through. But the faster we understand that a disease is a companion who will be there for a while (we don't know how long) and not something to attack us, the easier it is to live the new reality. When they give us a diagnosis, we put a lot of energy into saying "this is only for a moment" and we focus on giving all our energy to that "moment." The problem is that we don't know how long it will last and then, if it lasts longer than we expected, we don't have any energy left. 

We think it'll last six months, and we'll return to everyday life. But it doesn't fade away, and the average life we once knew doesn't come back. What happens is that we build our new everyday life and learn to live with our new reality as happy or happier than before. I remember my mom saying: 'don't worry, you'll take pills for six months, and then this will just be a bad dream,' Or I would tell myself, 'In a month, I'll be travelling, I'll be fine and this will just be a memory. A month went by, and I couldn't travel, six months went by, and I was still taking pills and wearing a mask 24/7. As months went by, I noticed I had to be RESILIENT and ACCEPT life had changed, it wasn't going back to what I knew as my life, but that didn't mean I couldn't be happy with a new reality. I didn't need my life from before to be happy. There were beautiful things in this 'new reality,' and I was missing out on them for thinking about what I missed from the old times.

I spent so much time and energy thinking, "until when?" or thinking about something that was not coming back, life before an illness. I wish I knew it was worth investing energy into that new being rather than trying to recover the past I'd never reach. Diagnosis is a rough change; it is shocking, but let's not jump to floor 100 when we're only on the second stairstep.

It was hard to take that first step to accept, resigning to who you once were—also realizing that you are not returning to your life before a disease. However, I understood that life was beautiful, even with an illness that wouldn't be over anytime soon, and I could still smile.

Today I tell you that if you got diagnosed recently, I get how overwhelmed your mind is and the endless questions. But I also tell you that even though you have entered a battlefield against your will, this battle will make you see the beauty in life, the beauty of YOUR life, and all the happiness you didn't know you had before.