Sea Monsters (C-Monsters)

legaljen1969

I am going to really age myself with this post, but I remember a show called Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. It was about some boys who found this sea monster named Sigmund who was kicked out of his family for refusing to frighten people.

That's sort of how I felt when I first encountered this group. It was the place that refused to frighten everyone. It was informative and didn't shy away from the hard questions and answers, but never approached things from the fear perspective.

So many in the world are part of the scary sea monster family. The ones who automatically jump to "Are you going to die?" The ones who say "Oh, you can wear cute little hats and try some sassy wigs when your hair falls out." The ones who automatically jump to telling you how chemotherapy is going to ravage your body. Sometimes those sea monsters really overtake us.

Then there are the Sigmund type sea monsters. My surgeon was a Sigmund for me. She cautioned me against going down all sorts of rabbit holes on the internet and encouraged me to come to her with questions. She gave me my "handbook" and encouraged me not to read it much beyond the step I was facing at any given time. She said "it's just too overwhelming."

I will post more about my journey in the breast cancer discussions.

This group is a friendly sea creature, filled with lots of love and encouragement. The people here are straight shooters but they don't try to scare you. We are all here for you to stand by you to do battle. Sometimes we have fought the same battle- the same monster. Other times we can just offer tips to keep the monster at bay.

I would encourage everyone to think of at least one thing for which they are thankful, and know that this is a safe space to share those things that make us feel less than grateful as we battle the C-Monster.

For everyone who is there for you, whether it be your family, your doctors, the staff in your doctors' offices, the nurses who make sure you are comfortable and the ones who are honest and give you the hard information with a huge dose of compassion- do NOT forget to tell these folks how grateful you are for them.