I Am Not A Purple Crayon

Luke had a play date recently with a little boy from the neighborhood. Halfway through the play date, Luke came running up to me in tears and said that his friend, Eric, had called him "a midget". He was clearly very distraught from this. As I wiped his tears I asked him, "Are you a midget?" and he immediately and emphatically responded "No!"
"Then don't let it bother you, Sweetie." I responded.
"But he won't stop saying it, Mommy!" he cried.
"Luke, what would you say if your friend had called you a purple crayon?" He looked at me completely confused. "What would you say to him, Luke?" I asked again.
"I don't understand, Mommy. That's stupid."
"Right. It is stupid. It would be stupid for Eric to call you a purple crayon, because you are clearly not a purple crayon. I know that you are not a purple crayon, but more importantly, you know that you are not a purple crayon. And so you would probably look at Eric and tell him that that is the stupidest thing you have ever heard, right?"
"Right," he responded tentatively.
"Well, you and I both know that you are also not a midget. There is no question in my mind and there is no question in your mind: you are definitely not a midget. And so you need to go back downstairs and tell Eric that this is the stupidest thing that you have ever heard. His words can only affect you if you let yourself believe what he is saying is true."
"But what if he won't stop saying it to me?" Luke responded.
"Then walk away from him. Tell him that you only like to be with people who make you happy and since he is not making you happy you do not want to play with him until he can be nice."
Luke went back downstairs and I didn't see him again until the end of the play date, so I assume that my sage advice did the trick (or else -- typical of 5-year-olds -- the drama simply evaporated as quickly as it started).

I realized yesterday, though, that I need to learn to take my own advice. This Bitch inside of me keeps telling me that I am weak. She whispers to me that I do not have the strength to expel her from my body. She tries to make me question whether my will to live is stronger than her desire to kill me. But as I sit here now and think back to Luke and his play date, I am realizing that these things are only true if I believe them myself. I would be lying if I said that I haven't had moments of doubt. I had many of these moments a couple weeks ago, right after I received my diagnosis. Hearing the word "cancer" was the scariest moment in my life and I shook uncontrollably for days afterwards. My immediate thought was how can I possibly beat stage 3 (or worse, stage 4!) cancer? What if I am not strong enough to be one of the survivors? What if I was meant to die at a young age, long before my parents and even two of my grandparents? What will happen to my beautiful children and my husband? Lately, these moments of weakness have come less frequently and usually at the end of a long day of doctors' appointments when, by necessity, we have been exploring "worst case" scenarios. I am sure that there will be many more of these doubt-filled moments ahead as I go in for follow-up tests and as my body becomes weakened by the chemo and radiation. But I know in my heart that I am strong enough to beat this. I honestly believe that as long as there are people who emerge cancer-free from "stage 3.5 colon cancer", then I most definitely have the emotional, physical and moral strength necessary to be one of those people.

So the next time the Bitch starts whispering in my ear, I will simply say to her "That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard, you Bitch! You cannot make me believe something that I know is not true. I am not a purple crayon, I am not weak, and I sure as hell don't want to die!" In an ideal world, I would also whip around and storm away from the Bitch (since she is most definitely not making me happy!) but unfortunately, she seems to be stuck inside my body at the moment.