Cross-post from Art of Life guild.
Nic is writing another essay, head for the hills!
I started the thread that birthed this guild back in 2004 when I was going through a very tough time emotionally, battling a constant suicidal craving and self-injury that led to several half-hearted suicide attempts. I've been through it all; overdose, wrist-slitting, trying- and miserably failing- to hang myself, even sitting at the edge of a bridge pondering a long drop.
I am no stranger to the want to die, and all my life I'd had it, reveled in it, loved it, made artwork of it, glorified it.
Well... for those of you that don't know, I just got done going through a very, incredibly, extremely difficult and frightening ordeal. In less than three months I fell ill, was diagnosed, and was cured of kidney cancer.
Yes, cured. One in three hundred people that is given the diagnosis of "cancer" in any form will actually survive it. This is no "remission", this is no subsiding of symptoms, this is cure.
Now, a little info. I am 22 years old. Other than some nagging things that have been burdening me for a while, I am healthy. My family history is healthy, with no serious diseases on either side. I have no predisposition to anything but drug tolerance and a tiny nickle allergy. Yes, the height of my health problems used to be that it itched to hold quarters in a fist.
The first doctor I saw said "no way." Zero chance it could be cancer. Why? I was too young, too healthy, too good of a family line, too little cause. There was absolutely no plausible reason cancer could have snuck into my kidney and started to invade and try to kill me.
The urologist I saw didn't think so. And after insisting we take the thing out, and run pathology on it, we found he was right. I had a cancer called Renal Cell Carcinoma swelling up inside my right kidney.
I heard the same thing from everyone after that. "You're too young for this." "That's unfair."
Unfair? What was unfair was the fact that until this moment I had WANTED to die. I wanted to more than anything, I hated life and nothing was going to keep me here. Every turn my life took was the worst it could go and I had no control.
Now?
I found myself begging for more time, wondering why it had to be me and why I had to go through this. Why did I have to suffer and face death at such a young age, completely out of my own hands?
It made me wonder why I ever could have thought I wanted death.
I was extremely lucky. It was as if all the bad luck in my life had culminated to this one thing- the kidney came out looking normal other than swollen, and the cancer hadn't spread the slightest bit. Two weeks ago, I had cancer.
Right now, I don't.
Now I feel myself to be blessed, given another chance. So much in life there is to do, to experience, and just look around... Everything is so amazing, can't you see it? Just look... just look.
The tiniest thing is filled with beauty and life if you just look. Don't let that hole in your heart put a blindfold over your precious eyes... just look at the beauty around you. Humanity serving humanity, nature serving nature, all for the benefit of all. Life is always doing what it can to endure, no matter what illness you toss in its path.
I've truly been saved, both from a young death at the hands of a rare and aggressive cancer and from the evil poisoning of the mind that comes from fear... simply fear to live and enjoy it.
Don't be afraid to enjoy the things that you know you can enjoy. What someone else thinks about what you like is pointless. Someone else's negative judgment is just their pain let into the open; you know best whether or not that should stop you.
If it hurts, it hurts... but it's not the only thing and never is. We were made to endure anything and everything. I have faith in you.
Living for the beauty of the world that you can find wherever you find it, and spreading that beauty and sharing it; that is the value of my life.
Who knows what it could be in you? I'm willing to stake my own that it's absolutely priceless.
Never, ever waste it.
I started the thread that birthed this guild back in 2004 when I was going through a very tough time emotionally, battling a constant suicidal craving and self-injury that led to several half-hearted suicide attempts. I've been through it all; overdose, wrist-slitting, trying- and miserably failing- to hang myself, even sitting at the edge of a bridge pondering a long drop.
I am no stranger to the want to die, and all my life I'd had it, reveled in it, loved it, made artwork of it, glorified it.
Well... for those of you that don't know, I just got done going through a very, incredibly, extremely difficult and frightening ordeal. In less than three months I fell ill, was diagnosed, and was cured of kidney cancer.
Yes, cured. One in three hundred people that is given the diagnosis of "cancer" in any form will actually survive it. This is no "remission", this is no subsiding of symptoms, this is cure.
Now, a little info. I am 22 years old. Other than some nagging things that have been burdening me for a while, I am healthy. My family history is healthy, with no serious diseases on either side. I have no predisposition to anything but drug tolerance and a tiny nickle allergy. Yes, the height of my health problems used to be that it itched to hold quarters in a fist.
The first doctor I saw said "no way." Zero chance it could be cancer. Why? I was too young, too healthy, too good of a family line, too little cause. There was absolutely no plausible reason cancer could have snuck into my kidney and started to invade and try to kill me.
The urologist I saw didn't think so. And after insisting we take the thing out, and run pathology on it, we found he was right. I had a cancer called Renal Cell Carcinoma swelling up inside my right kidney.
I heard the same thing from everyone after that. "You're too young for this." "That's unfair."
Unfair? What was unfair was the fact that until this moment I had WANTED to die. I wanted to more than anything, I hated life and nothing was going to keep me here. Every turn my life took was the worst it could go and I had no control.
Now?
I found myself begging for more time, wondering why it had to be me and why I had to go through this. Why did I have to suffer and face death at such a young age, completely out of my own hands?
It made me wonder why I ever could have thought I wanted death.
I was extremely lucky. It was as if all the bad luck in my life had culminated to this one thing- the kidney came out looking normal other than swollen, and the cancer hadn't spread the slightest bit. Two weeks ago, I had cancer.
Right now, I don't.
Now I feel myself to be blessed, given another chance. So much in life there is to do, to experience, and just look around... Everything is so amazing, can't you see it? Just look... just look.
The tiniest thing is filled with beauty and life if you just look. Don't let that hole in your heart put a blindfold over your precious eyes... just look at the beauty around you. Humanity serving humanity, nature serving nature, all for the benefit of all. Life is always doing what it can to endure, no matter what illness you toss in its path.
I've truly been saved, both from a young death at the hands of a rare and aggressive cancer and from the evil poisoning of the mind that comes from fear... simply fear to live and enjoy it.
Don't be afraid to enjoy the things that you know you can enjoy. What someone else thinks about what you like is pointless. Someone else's negative judgment is just their pain let into the open; you know best whether or not that should stop you.
If it hurts, it hurts... but it's not the only thing and never is. We were made to endure anything and everything. I have faith in you.
Living for the beauty of the world that you can find wherever you find it, and spreading that beauty and sharing it; that is the value of my life.
Who knows what it could be in you? I'm willing to stake my own that it's absolutely priceless.
Never, ever waste it.