The Better Side of Cancer

This book is an inspiring story about courage, optimism of life, and determination of the author who encountered unexpected experiences on her way. The biggest of them turned out to be the fight against cancer, which twisted into a positive experience, changing completely the approach to the life of the writer. This autobiographical narrative moves a reader into the toughest moment of her life and can be a good read for anyone who battles cancer and struggles to find themselves in new and tough life circumstances. The author has kept a positive spirit throughout the cancer treatment, which helped her to go through it with energy and cheerfulness. This book is a true story of self-motivation, written with a sense of humour, which reads with a smile. ***

A 7-year-old girl knocks at the tanned-brown wooden gate with shapes of various wild animals carved onto the brass knocker. After few hefty knocks, she hears heavy steps. The door opens, and she enters the 'Dome of Books', the name she gave to this building of the National Archives. She thinks it was built in the last century or even prior, for it looks like a mysterious castle.
Daddy is in his suite on the third floor, alone in this fortress, accompanied by the noises from the creepy staircases that she follows upwards. She stops on the first level to catch her breath, as the air is so cold. Her throat is stinging. Her stomach knots when on the second floor she passes that gigantic fountain with water dripping in an empty bright shell from an open mouth of a creature she couldn't name.
'It is gloomier than it was on the lowest floor, ' she thought.
It turns into a darker sensation when she reaches her destination. Her T-shirt got stuck to her icy cold, wet back. The light from the bottom is fading with each step up. Apart from the wet droplets falling into a golden sink in the fountain's cascade, she hears the beat of her heart. Her moves are echoing in the weird citadel of bricks, marbled floors, and stone walls.
She glances down from the barrier she holds tightly and sees the apparent unending abyss from where she came just a few minutes before. When she hammers at her daddy's office door, she is as pale as the Moon.
Her eyes smile, and her mouth widens at the corners when her papa picks her up and twirls her in the air. Her cheeks are reddening from joy and happiness. But her heart is still thumping its noisy melody...

* * *

With sun rays bathing the scene of St Ouen's Beach, I explore clear waves of the Atlantic. The waves bounce like bath bubbles, sending glossy sparkles into my eyes. The setting could not have been more perfect.
I clicked a few photos that later would feed my Instagram page. I ironed my floral cotton dress with fingers and smiled.
Luis, with a heavy breath, rushed to me with his yellow tennis ball and gave me a typical dog's attraction: he licked my face with his hot tongue, reaching my eyes at the end of his long kiss.