Coffee with All4Cure - Cindy (1/3)

It is so important to remember that every day is a gift and you need to make the most of it because you just don't know what's going to happen. Lots of people know my story, it's been almost seven years since I was diagnosed with myeloma, but there's a lot of people I interact with who don't know. I made a decision early on that I really didn't want to let myeloma define me. I was 48 when I was diagnosed. I have a husband who I love and kids who I want to see grow up. I didn't want people to look at me as “that poor lady with cancer” even though there were times I wasn’t able to hide it because I was bald or looked sick. For me, just living my life as if I don’t have it has worked really well for not letting it be what defines me. Something that sparked my choice to have a positive attitude from the beginning was blogging on Caring Bridge through my whole diagnosis. Writing about what I was going through and thinking about the people that were going to read it helped me. I would say about 95% of my posts were really positive, even when things weren't good. There were some times when my husband had to write for me because I wasn't well enough to do it, but even then it formed my positive framework to focus on the good and not on the negative, to look forward and not back. I got a lot of feedback from people about how they couldn't believe that somebody could be so positive going through myeloma. Readers were affected in a positive way and that was good for all of us.