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 itbut 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."

I found more mantras and inspiration in the writings of Louise Hay, herself a cancer patient and author on positive thinking. After a year, I had filled four notebooks and started to pick my own mantras, one each day.

But the real breakthrough came one morning as I was sitting in the kitchen, looking for a new mantra. In the back of my mind, I heard "Dear cancer."

It was a shock. How could I even think "Dear cancer?" Why was I saying that? I began to cry.

Without even noticing, I started to write: "Dear cancer, I bless you with love and I release you and let you go out of my life. Thank you for what you have taught me."

When I filled a whole page, I felt relieved. The heavy weight in my shoulders lifted. Then I started to laugh. I was crying and laughing at the same time.

After that morning, I started to see cancer as my friend not something to fight but something with a purpose, something that came to teach me again what life is about. It reminds me that I'm stronger than I thought, brave and I have beautiful reasons to wake up every day.

I say all this, but I want to be clear that I also value western medicine. In my family in Mexico there are seven doctors between my brother, cousins and uncles, and my parents ran a pharmacy for more than 25 years. I believe in western medicine; I believe in research.

During the whole time I was searching for holistic healing, I also followed my doctors' recommendations for new medical therapies and continued with chemotherapy.

I'm taking the best of two worlds and am grateful for both.

I still have dark days and side-effects from the drugsand, five years after my diagnosis, I'm still in treatment. But I like to think that I'm a cancer survivor because I'm back to feeling like myself again.

I'm back at work. I enjoy being outside, I'm eating healthy (but not too healthy) and most days I have a big smile just because I'm here.

Telling your story

As part of our ongoing partnership with the Calgary Public Library,CBC Calgary is running in-person writing workshopsto support community members telling their own stories. Read more from this workshop, runout of the Central Library in partnership withthe Women's Centre of Calgary.

To find outmore, suggest a topic or volunteer a community organization to help host,email CBC producer Elise Stolteor visitcbc.ca/tellingyourstory.