I've written volumes on my website about the struggles I've faced as a cancer survivor and all that's challenged me. I can neither leave this situation, nor have I ever been willing to accept some things about it. All I've ever been able to do is CHANGE, to grow, and to evolve.

This was me at the gym this morning! But you know what, I still feel awesome mentally and physically despite a crappy workout. Exercise has been my cure-all for the past few years. 

I love every single comment I get about my writing, including the occasional backfires. I knew when writing "PTSD After Cancer Part III" that I would catch some flak from somewhere for mentioning faith and spiritual beliefs as a way of healing, and I was right. 

All of these fit together. Especially as young adults, cancer turns our lives upside down. Not all of the elements of life as we knew it before cancer, "BC", are going to fit into our new post-cancer lives. In order to thrive again, that means making changes in our lives.

Sunday inspiration. We're so much stronger than we believe we are. There's a popular expression of doubt, "I'll believe it when I see it." The late Wayne Dyer wrote a book titled the reverse of that, "You'll see it when you believe it" about the power of our minds to transform our lives.

Some of my nearest and dearest friends, people who've been named or pictured in some of my blogs and have been along for this ride with me in various ways, have said that they can't possibly understand or even imagine what this has been like to go through. 

I can't change the fact that I had cancer. I can't change the fact that it wrecked me in so many ways physically, mentally, and spiritually. But I can control how I respond to being wrecked, and keep getting back up again. :)

Just short of two years after my cancer diagnosis, I hit rock bottom. A friend of mine had died of his cancer, other friends were experiencing recurrences of theirs, I had strange things going on with my body, and thought for sure that my cancer had returned. I feared that I had just lived my last good days, and that I was going to die.

While in such distressed states, I've needed to be able to look someone in their eyes and just know that they're with me, that their hearts and their intentions towards me are pure, and I've needed to feel their strength, their confidence, and their positive energy as my own, because lord knows I've needed every bit of it.

Part of coping with post-traumatic stress after cancer has been my attitude and mindset towards it, and the realization that there is NOTHING wrong with me. PTS is a very normal thing to experience for anyone who's been through traumatic experiences.

As cancer survivors, we already have 99 things on my mind that are hurting us, that we're worried about, or afraid of. The last thing we need, is something or someone external to that adding to that burden. 

Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better.