When I learned to see cancer as my friend and teacher, I started to really live again

This First Person column is the experience of Maria Carmona, who lives with her husband, Miguel Salinas, in Calgary. They each wrote their story of Maria's cancer journey. Read Miguel's piece here.

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In the dark, dark days following the news my ovarian cancer had come back, people told me I must be a warrior. Instead, I just cried out to God. 

And perhaps he did send an answer. Because a few days after my prayer, I was scrolling through Facebook and found an advertisement for a program to help cancer patients find holistic healing. I scrolled past, then went back, then thought: "Why not?"

Cancer is a solo journey. Everyone does it differently. But this is my story of how I learned not to fight it but to see cancer as a friend. Yes, a friend — something to teach me a valuable lesson about how to really live.

I will take you back to the beginning. It was a warm day in September 2017 when my family doctor said the words: "You have cancer."

He sat me down in his office, and even today as I think back, my heart beats fast, my hands shake and my eyes water. I heard the news and started to cry, "my sons, my sons." 

My youngest was 11 then. I wept so hard, I couldn't pay attention.

The first round of treatment was 18 cycles of chemotherapy. But it worked, my body was clean. I thought I won.

Then after 10 months, my cancer came back, and the second experience with chemotherapy was worse than ever. I was in disbelief, angry and very disappointed — I thought I must be doing something wrong.

But that's when I bought that program on the internet and slowly, slowly my anger turned to hope.

This program had a holistic approach — it didn't just focus on diet and exercises, it challenged me to heal my soul, my heart and my mind. 

Meditation and reiki helped me calm my anxiety, hear my heart and stay in the present. Yoga helped me to feel normal again after chemo left my body numb. But the most difficult and ultimately important part was emotional. I had to accept the diagnosis rather than constantly fight it. For that, I used mantras.

The mantras came from my therapist. She suggested I write these in a special notebook and gave me the first one: "Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can and wisdom to know the difference."