Choose Life

Our lives are filled with choices.

Almost two years ago, when I learned about my diagnosis, I made a choice, a conscious choice, about how I would live my life.

I stumbled, by accident, on frightening survival statistics of women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer: only 20% are still alive five years after their diagnosis.

I determined right then and there that I intended to be part of that 20%.

I wish I could remember which angel directed me to the fabulous article by Stephen J. Gould, "The Median is Not the Message". I think it might have been someone from Sharsheret, a wonderful Jewish American organization that provided me with tremendous support in those devastating initial weeks, before I found appropriate support here in Israel.

If you have not read it already, then I recommend doing so now. Go ahead. It will reshape the way you view the world.

I read "The Median is Not the Message" and realized that my determination to "beat the odds" is a rational possibility and not just "wishful thinking."

Meanwhile, Moshe was reading everything he could about my disease. My dear, loving, sensitive husband was devastated by the statistics.

I knew that Moshe, for whom logic and cold science are fundamental to how he views the world, needed to read the article.

That article was the greatest gift I could give him.

But I did not stop there. I had already begun formulating my 20-year-plan.

I figured that if I did end up living for another 20 years or more, it would be an aweful shame to live all that time worrying about dying tomorrow.

Besides, I joked, I "just need to live long enough for them to discover a cure."

There is so much research going on every day, who knows what new medicines and miracle cures might be just a few years down the road?

We do not know what the future will bring. So why live expecting the worst? What a waste of our valuable time and energy.

In the past, I loved the adage "expect the worst, hope for the best, and you will never be disappointed." Suddenly, this approach to life no longer served me well.

I shifted paradigms.

I chose to expect the best.

I chose to believe that I would live, that I would have a future.

In Parshat Nitzavim, which we read on Shabbat, just before Rosh HaShanah, during the time when Jews are focussed on self-evaluation and repentence, Moshe Rabeinu (our teacher; not my husband) addresses Am Yisrael (the Jewish People) and proclaims:

הַעִדֹתִי בָכֶם הַיּוֹם, אֶת-הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת-הָאָרֶץ, הַחַיִּים וְהַמָּוֶת נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ, הַבְּרָכָה וְהַקְּלָלָה; וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים, לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה, אַתָּה וְזַרְעֶךָ
(דברים ל:יט)

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Please daven (or send happy, healing thoughts) for RivkA bat Teirtzel.

With love and optimism,
RivkA