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"In November 2001, Erin Zammett Ruddy, now 29, was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a cancer that until recently proved fatal for most patients. Ever since, she&amp;amp;#8217;s chronicled her story in these pages, including the shocking news of her older sister Melissa&amp;amp;#8217;s diagnosis of Hodgkin&amp;amp;#8217;s lymphoma in 2003. Now both are in remission&amp;amp;#8212;but Erin&amp;amp;#8217;s got a lot on her mind. I can still picture the moment so clearly: I was sitting in Dr. Lutsky&amp;amp;#8217;s office, my heart pounding, choking back tears as he relayed the results of my routine blood test: cancer. That was five years ago, but it feels like yesterday&amp;amp;#8212;as Melissa has joked to me, &amp;amp;#8220;Time flies when you&amp;amp;#8217;re having fun!&amp;amp;#8221; I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t do anything special to commemorate the actual day, but I&amp;amp;#8217;ve been thinking a lot about this milestone. I feel lucky to be in remission, although I&amp;amp;#8217;m not considered cured since I&amp;amp;#8217;m still being treated. And I&amp;amp;#8217;m OK with that&amp;amp;#8230;swallowing a few pills each day is a small price to pay for living a normal life. Still, those of you who&amp;amp;#8217;ve read my past few columns (or my blog) know that I&amp;amp;#8217;m focused on having a baby and that I&amp;amp;#8217;ll temporarily need to go off Gleevec to do so. I&amp;amp;#8217;m beyond excited about the possibility of starting a family, but all the looking forward has also made me want to look back. Despite the low points I&amp;amp;#8217;ve hit&amp;amp;#8212;and even with the fears I still have&amp;amp;#8212;cancer has taught me lessons that otherwise might have taken a lifetime to comprehend, and for that I am grateful. Thanks to cancer, I now know that: You can&amp;amp;#8217;t beat yourself up over stuff you can&amp;amp;#8217;t control When I was diagnosed at 23, I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t possibly understand what I&amp;amp;#8217;d done to deserve cancer. I actually thought, was God mad that I had devolved into a Christmas/Easter churchgoer? Was it all the X-rays I&amp;amp;#8217;d had at the dentist&amp;amp;#8217;s over the years? The nachos and Diet Coke diet of sophomore year? I eventually realized, with the help of my doctors, that getting cancer wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t my fault; it was just bad luck. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not saying I never felt sorry for myself, but once you accept that you&amp;amp;#8217;ve been dealt a bad hand, whatever that may be, you can focus on playing it the best way you can. Obsessing about your body is a giant waste of time B.C. (before cancer) I never missed a morning in the gym, rarely ate pasta, bagels or egg-and-cheese sandwiches (my faves), and glared at every roll and ripple in the mirror. Here&amp;amp;#8217;s how crazy I was: I had a Glamour photographer with me at my first cancer appointment (to take pictures of me for my column), and I let him document everything&amp;amp;#8212;the tears in the waiting room, the somber talk with the doctor. But when I had to step on the scale, I asked the photographer to wait outside. That&amp;amp;#8217;s what I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t handle&amp;amp;#8212;12 million readers knowing what I weighed. It took a serious dose of life-is-short reality to start living a little more. So here&amp;amp;#8217;s a wake-up call from me to you: indulge. Quit worrying about the jiggle. Get out there and start carpe-ing the diem! You shouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t need a life-threatening event to do this stuff. Helping others really does help you The only way I knew how to feel less like a victim was to take charge&amp;amp;#8212;by sharing my story (at fund-raisers, in classrooms) and raising money and awareness for cancer. Melissa and I once raked in $37,000 in six weeks for the Leukemia &amp;amp; Lymphoma Society! Sure, my life revolves around cancer, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s cancer on my terms. It&amp;amp;#8217;s about my charity work and other patients and survivors I&amp;amp;#8217;ve met who&amp;amp;#8217;ve enriched my life in ways I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t even know it needed enriching. One of the best things I ever did was visit the pediatric cancer ward at a local hospital for a &amp;amp;#8220;Glamour day of beauty.&amp;amp;#8221; I brought makeup, and we all tried it on and painted each other&amp;amp;#8217;s nails. The memory of the kids&amp;amp;#8217; smiling faces will always push me to do more. It&amp;amp;#8217;s OK to sweat the small stuff After I was diagnosed, I felt like I had to become a new calmed-down, centered version of myself (a person many of us wish we could be, right?). I mean, I had cancer, for crying out loud; how could I get upset about running out of milk or traffic jams or Nick (my now husband) leaving the bed unmade every single morning? But I did. At first I thought I was failing as a cancer patient, failing to have that newfound perspective on life I thought came standard with every diagnosis. I&amp;amp;#8217;m over that now. Sure, it would be great if we could all roam the earth with a Zen-like peace about us. But that&amp;amp;#8217;s just not realistic for me. Besides, sweating the small stuff every once in a while keeps us from sweating the big stuff, the stuff we can&amp;amp;#8217;t always control. Don&amp;amp;#8217;t keep it to yourself When you&amp;amp;#8217;re going through a tough time, you may not want to burden your friends, so you say nothing and feel miserably alone. What I&amp;amp;#8217;ve learned: People want to listen and help; they just need a green light. So get the conversation going, make it clear you want to talk and people will respond, I promise. Discussing your issues, no matter how big or small, is the best way to cope. That said, I do give Nick an occasional break from all my what-iffing. He&amp;amp;#8217;s always there for me, but he just doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t need to hear (again) that I lie awake some nights picturing, in full detail, the moment my cancer comes back. Smile at the grouchy Starbucks barista The thing is, you never know what a person is going through, so why not be nice? I&amp;amp;#8217;m not saying if a jerk steals my cab I wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t give him a dirty look. But I generally try to be kind; even a little friendliness can matter when you&amp;amp;#8217;re down and out. Some days, if a stranger simply holds the elevator for me, I feel just a bit better about my situation. The most important thing in life is family OK, this one I always knew, but Mom and Dad, if you&amp;amp;#8217;re reading, I want you to know that I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t have survived the past five years without you. I love you so much and feel lucky every day that you&amp;amp;#8217;re in my life. Thank you."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2007/02/cancer-diary-seven-things-learned-from-cancer/2>