It has been a fascinating journey for me. I have been embraced by an amazing community of women who are survivors or who have lost loved ones to cancer and who have shared their personal stories and cheered me on. I found I still had humor even in the toughest of circumstances and discovered my strengths and weaknesses and figured out that positive thinking is essential. Because the breast is the "nurturing" part of the body, my biggest lesson has been that I have to nuture myself and let others help me (something I thought was beneath me...because as a wife, mother, daughter and social worker that was my job afterall). I work with teen parent clients...and if that's not nurturing, I don't know what is! Cancer taught me that I have to take care of myself and let others help me even though it is the most challenging thing for me to do. So, I took 7 months off work to heal and am now getting into yoga again and learning to play the bass guitar. I am also learning that I am complete and beautiful and sexy without breasts, hair or a perfect body. I am a cancer vixen...sassy, sexy and alive. My experience was about letting go. It was about really experiencing all that was happening at the deepest lemotional level. That is where the biggest life changes occur! I don't believe that you have to be diagnosed with cancer to come to these lessons, but sometimes the catastrophic moments in life force you to focus in on the immediate. I am happy with who I am and happy to be alive.

Miichelle Smith
Beaverton, OR