After receiving a cancer diagnosis, 31-year-old Amanda Hedges talks candidly about how she would have lived her life differently.
When we think about life, we think we have a lot of time left, but in reality, things happen that keep us from experiencing life to the fullest and realizing our dreams.
For Amanda, the thing that turned her life upside down has been her cancer diagnosis.
It all began last year when she began to get slight headaches, which she thought were caused by her anxiety drugs.
“I asked my psychiatrist about it. They weren’t bad headaches and went away with Panadol,” she explained.
She regrettably won’t forgive herself for “forgetting to live” after discovering, following an MRI, that the headaches were brought on by an aggressive brain tumor that had only given her months to live.
Since the tumor cannot be removed, she claims that the interminable rounds of radiation and chemotherapy will simply lengthen her life.
Amanda would have changed a lot of things about her life had she had the chance.
“None of my old bosses or colleagues are sitting with me while I do chemo.”
“It’s my mum and dad and friends that are here supporting me through this,” she told FEMAIL.
“I wish I could live again so I could stop worrying about the little things and enjoy myself.”
“I would spend more time with the people who actually mattered, make more of an effort to meet someone and have kids, to travel.”
“If I had my time again I would do everything different.”
She continued: “I really want to stay at a hotel on the beach and just listen to the waves and forget that I am dying. Forget that I am me. Be someone else for a few days and just relax and have fun.”
“I have also always wanted to head back to Australia Zoo and see Robert Irwin do a show. I saw his dad do one when I was a kid but I have always just put off going.”
“And I really want to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet. I guess hotels would have that covered.”
Amanda claimed that despite the sobering prognosis, her parents—particularly her mother—help her maintain her optimism.
“They don’t know how long the cancer has been there or when it will start to happen, but it will happen,” she said.
“I haven’t processed it all yet.”
“I wasted 30 years of my life doing nothing and I still have cancer.”
She hopes to maximize her days by making the most of her remaining time.
Amanda created a GoFundMe page to accomplish this.
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