Now, for that Martian stuff.
Awhile back, we went to see the movie, The Martian. You know, the one with Matt Damon. As I was watching the movie, I thought about how having a life altering illness is like being on a foreign planet. I thought to myself, every single person in this theater has some battle they are fighting or that they have fought (and the theater was super full). We are all connected, and yet we are all alone.
In the movie, Matt Damon gets stranded on Mars all by himself. He does eventually make contact with earth, but it's up to him to survive on a desolate planet. My Mars was cancer of course. You realize in the midst of something as traumatic as losing part of your body that no matter how much support you have from your friends and family, you really do have to go through the act of survival on your own. No one can do that part for you. YOU have to fight.
Then there's the terrain. The landscape can be formidable. In the movie, Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, has to figure out how to traverse the desert-like environment on an alien planet. It's similar to learning how to love the new environment that I have to live in. My body is a whole new world. Expanders, boobs bigger than they've ever been, tight, sore skin, numbness on my right side, lymphedema that makes my right hand bigger than my left, hormonal changes, scars. Every day is something new. Every day, I have to figure out how to look in the mirror and love what I see. Every day, I long to go back to before. At the same time, every day I'm thankful for this experience. I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to forge a new trail, to clear a path that will allow others to survive and learn to live past this ordeal.
Just like the main character in the movie, we are warriors. We never lose hope, we keep fighting, we learn, we find ways to cope, and we make a bright new world.