The history of my life changed on May 9, 1997, when I heard the words that I thought would always be meant for someone else: "You have breast cancer."

The next morning, I lay in bed curled up in the fetal position, covers pulled up under my chin, not wanting to leave that safe spot. The world had suddenly become a less inviting, more forbidding place, a no-man's-land into which I was no longer certain I had the strength or courage to venture. I couldn't believe the sun had actually risen on this, my darkest of days.

Then I noticed that, outside, cars still passed on the highway, the mail had been delivered, the rhythm of life continued. Less than 24 hours after my diagnosis, I learned the first of many lessons that cancer would teach me: The world would go on with or without me.

The life I chose to face when I threw back the covers that morning bore no resemblance whatsoever to the one I had been living a day earlier.

I remember picking up a childhood picture of myself that my husband keeps on his nightstand, peering into the face of that little girl with the long blond braids who stared back at me so soberly. I wondered if the seeds of my illness already lay within her.

I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and warn her about everything that lay ahead, as if by doing so I could change the inevitable. I yearned for those days when all it took was a Band-Aid and a kiss to mend life's catastrophes.

Passing my daughter's room, I caught sight of a bridal magazine lying on her bed, where just days before (or was it a lifetime?) we excitedly picked out our favorite dresses.

Would I even be here to see my dear daughter in her beautiful dress?

I remember little else about the following days except doing all the reading I could because cancer forces you to go from ignorant to informed in fairly short order.

I found it a twisted irony that I would now make life-and-death decisions in less time than it had taken me to pick out wallpaper for the bathroom.

It wasn't until later, after my lumpectomy, that I read about all the stages a cancer patient goes through the denial, the anger, the guilt and grief.

I spent about two minutes in denial. I had led a pretty charmed life up until that spring day, but for some time, I had had an uneasy sensation that something huge lurked on the horizon. Oddly enough, I felt relief to finally confront it, relief that I was not watching my husband or my children endure this trial.

My belief that I hadn't been singled out for a reason was echoed in a cartoon that I came across about halfway through my chemo treatments. Frank and Ernest are driving down the road in their car, and the first sign they come to says: HIGHWAY OF LIFE. A little further down the road is a second sign: PREPARE TO PAY TOLLS.

If I spent a short time in denial, I certainly made up for it in anger. Anger gets a lot of bad press, but really, it's the most powerful weapon a soldier carries into battle. So much self-loathing goes hand in hand with a cancer diagnosis. I can remember standing in the bathroom in those early days, looking at my body in the mirror and mentally screaming, "You traitor!"

No one coughed on me and gave me this disease; no germ invaded my body. It was my own cells running amuck, and for me, that was the hardest part to accept. I had tried to do everything right. I don't smoke. I avoid alcohol for the most part, eat a balanced diet, had my babies young and nursed them and exercise daily.

I directed so much fury at this body I had cared for so well and which had now betrayed me. Standing in the supermarket checkout lines scanning magazine cover stories only fueled my ire. "Cut Your Cancer Risk by 50%," "Outsmart Your Genes Beat Cancer" and the hands-down favorite at our house: "You Can Prevent Breast Cancer Here's How."

The not-so-subtle implication is that, had I beefed up on brussels sprouts and done a few more laps around the gym, I wouldn't have this disease. Cancer patients have enough to think about after a diagnosis without also holding themselves responsible for getting sick in the first place.

Guilt and grief followed. Putting my family through that emotional and financial nightmare and passing a family history on to my daughter plagued me with guilt. I grieved for the loss of my vitality, for my hair and for my changed body. I no longer thought of my breast as part of my femininity; it felt like a pork chop at the meat counter that too many people had picked up, poked and thrown back. It seemed as if I'd aged, not chronologically but like a young soldier who marches off to war and returns an old man.

In so many of the books I read, people claimed that their lives were actually better after cancer. I thought, "Man, their former lives must have really sucked if cancer was an improvement. No way will I ever feel like that."

Only with the passage of time, as my anger subsided, would a bittersweet truth surface: When we feel the weakest, when we are emotionally immobilized, we must continue to seek happiness it's the way we thumb our noses at cancer. This is the essence of survival. A survivor isn't necessarily someone who has lived through cancer but is someone who has not let cancer keep her from being happy, from making plans for the future, from going on with the business of living.

I still get the shakes at times, when the "what-ifs" take over my mind and hold it hostage. On those days, I feel an overwhelming compulsion to scan the obituaries, looking for women my age and wondering if they died from breast cancer, rejoicing when my search is fruitless.

Scores of people have said to me, "I'll bet you're glad this is all over and you can put it behind you." Sounds logical. Now that I've had time to sift through the emotional fallout, I started thinking about exactly what part of it I would want to put behind me, but there's just so much I want to keep right out in front of me: the top-notch medical care I received, the deep devotion of my oncologist to his work, the caring people and fellow patients that I met, the closeness that enveloped my family.

Cancer leads you places you never dreamed you'd go. I'm convinced that my illness was largely responsible for my husband and I making a midlife career change.

For years, we had wanted to quit farming, disillusioned by low commodity prices, the high cost of machinery, the fickleness of Nebraska weather. But we were afraid. Farming had been our livelihood for 25 years, the only trade we knew. Living through cancer empowers you, however. When I finished my treatments and was pronounced cancer-free, we felt invincible. How could any future be more frightening than what we had just come through?

We parked the combine after the harvest of 1998. After a farm sale, my husband would live his fantasy of driving a big rig. I would indulge my passion for writing and take on more hours at the bank where I had worked for 12 years.

We now have everything except regrets.

Cancer affirmed for me what I had always believed the essential elements of a well-lived life to be: loving relationships with family and friends, spiritual well-being, laughter, love of learning, compassion and service to others, M&Ms (not necessarily in that order).

I discovered that women are so accustomed to their role as nurturers in this world that it is a foreign feeling for them to focus on themselves and ask for what they need. With my very survival at stake, I learned that it's OK sometimes to put my needs first.

The people who weren't afraid to face me and talk about my pain taught me the most valuable lesson. From them, I took away the knowledge that it is only when we drag our demons out into the daylight that we experience the closure necessary for healing. Thankful for this wisdom, I am surprised that I can now think of my cancer with gratitude as well, for it is this horrible thing that has brought me to so much goodness. I realize that I can no longer hate it without hating myself, for it sprang from me, a part of my own being.

These days, there is an air of expectancy as each new day dawns and I reach out to embrace it, giddy and intoxicated at the prospect of so many minutes to fill and the endless possibilities. I know now that the remainder of my days will be spent engaged in our most challenging work here on earth: turning tragedy to triumph and helping others do the same. This is the task I take with me now, from before into after.