That day, when everything changed forever...

The day I received a cancer diagnosis was indeed surreal. Taking a break of a few months from the life I had been gifted with in a magical community in Costa Rica, I was taking advantage of my time back in Panama to take care of business. On that day I had programmed 3 doctor's appointments, and one of them was to pick up the results of a breast biopsy that had been performed 10 days prior. That morning I was happy, calm, trusting everything would be fine. In the afternoon I went to my appointments with my father. The first appointment was for an eye exam, and I got a prescription for glasses. The second appointment was to pick up the biopsy results. As I sat there in the doctor's office, he looked at me and said "sweetheart, the results came back a little off"... I felt my gut flip and I had to go to the bathroom. I went to the third appointment with the dermatologist anyway, as I figured I might as well finish off the rounds.

That evening two friends came to be with me for a while, like when somebody dies and people know it is best to not leave you alone. In the end they left, but not without leaving a whole packet of Xanax "just in case". Then, in the solitude of my new reality I wrote in my diary - "Today is the first day of the rest of my life. This is a huge gift, of that I am certain. Thank you Life for this opportunity to go even deeper into trust and healing, and understanding." Then I didn't sleep all night. I did wind up taking a Xanax, but it didn't help.

Caught up in a state of passive panic, my main fear was not death, but rather the well-known cancer treatments. And, especially, the fear was of not knowing what to do, which path to follow. Curiously, not once did I think "why me?", "this is unfair", "poor me". What did go through my mind was "what can I learn from this?", "what is the message?", "what things in my life could have led to my body needing to scream at me in such a radical way?", "how will I be able to change what needs to change in order to heal?"

That weekend I had organized a sailing and yoga retreat in the Pearl Islands Archipelago. Although I questioned whether I would have the nerves to teach yoga under this new paradigm, fortunately I followed the advice of those who know me the best, and I spent the first weekend after this life-changing diagnosis, in paradise, with my mother and adored friends, doing what I love most in the world - sailing. Thanks to that, I had the good fortune, from the very beginning of this adventure, of being able to connect with gratitude and with the recognition that, in spite of everything, I am a fortunate and blessed woman.

The next step... telling my children that mami has cancer, but that everything is going to be OK.