In some senses, I think that hope is all we’ve got. The doctors have done everything they possibly can to combat my cancer, and now all we can do is hope. Hope that the treatment works, hope that fate is on my side, hope that my kids don’t lose their mother and that my husband doesn’t lose his wife and that my dad doesn’t lose his daughter to cancer as he lost his wife.
It is a word loaded with optimism as well as insecurity. Its very definition acknowledges that our lives are out of our hands. It also has a quiet desperation to it while at the same time a quiet positivity. For me, hope has been a buoy throughout the entire cancer experience, even now that active treatment is many years behind me.