“Count your blessing not your sorrows”. Prayer is powerful. Eat your greens. Take up yoga, and remember if you keep an open heart the possibilities are endless.

I was 15 I was diagnosed with stage 2B ovarian cancer after getting both ovaries taken out the lack of hormones made my eating habits go crazy and I ate everything insight.

I am passionately committed to children fighting cancer. I want to use my experiences to educate and inspire others.

I went from thinking and saying: “I’m so ** angry that Cancer is a part of my history…What about my future?” to boldly declaring, “I’m so glad that Cancer is a part of my history; Not my future!”

I am living my best life and encouraging others to do the same; I have chosen to dance in the rain. I have visions of seeing the world, and I am conquering that vision 1 continent at a time.

Small town Ohio, March of 1987, married with two sons and working as an elementary school counselor. I felt the lump as I showered.

I was scared of chemotherapy, but you know how you can tell you’re really sick? When you feel better on chemotherapy.

I know that God is using me to help those who have been diagnosed with cancer, lost a child, and experience complications from Sickle Cell Anemia. I’m a survivor at the age of 35 who keeps surviving this life with exceptional testimonies. We never know what will happen tomorrow.

I figured I could cry and hide under my covers, or I could have my moments…but keep on keeping on – either way, I was going to have to deal with my diagnosis at the end of the day. So why not choose the good attitude?

It felt like the world was collapsing beneath my feet, I had to fight, but I needed a plan and I had to restore my attitude. When all attempts failed I turned to God and began to praise him – to remind myself that God is with me, no matter what I’m facing.

Something told me to trust the path and to trust this process.

I won’t say there wasn’t fear because that wouldn’t be true. I won’t say that one of my first thoughts was I’m going to see my father sooner than I thought because that wouldn’t be true. However, I had to collect myself; and so, what does one do.

I’ve been in radical remission since November 2011, free of evidence of disease and free of cancer treatment. My friends encouraged me to use my journalism background to write a book to assist others. That’s how “Thriver Soup: A Feast for Living Consciously During the Cancer Journey” was born.

I am a Mum with two beautiful special needs girls, who has fought blood cancer three times and in total have dealt with six medical traumas.

My name is Heidi Bright. I have fought two late-stage cancers, stage 3 Breast cancer since 2001 and stage 4 Head and Cancer since diagnosed in 2005 with two major recurrences in 2012 and 2013, requiring an 8-hour surgery, followed eight months later with a 12-hour surgery.

Since that walk on the Vancouver sea wall on January 1, 2011, I realized that the only way for me to make sense of the misery I’d been through was to give it meaning. I chose to become a cultivator of hope. For me, hope is the willingness to grieve what you’ve lost while choosing to believe in new possibilities for your life.

I still spend a lot of time in silence listening for His direction. I pay attention to my body and emotions. I trust and follow my intuition and continue having epiphanies like, knowing cancer was not the gift. I was the gift to cancer.

The Dr looks at me in shock like Bih did you hear what I said? She had seen the charts -she said go ahead and cancel your plans.

With all the challenges I’d been facing; the sun came up and the message in my heart was, “Put your big girl panties on and let’s get this show on the road.” I felt hope, and life and a future come into focus. I could physically and mentally feel the strength coming back into my body. My 2nd Act began evolving.

Being diagnosed with breast cancer, having a bi-lateral mastectomy, dealing with the emotional trauma of telling my kids I had cancer to facing the psychological scars of survivor’s guilt has been part of my 2nd act.