Janie Chenevert

411 ... the Terrorists Within: a Cancer Story Janie Chenevert

How this book came to be: I had just returned from the doctors after the second diagnosis of cancer. I called all my family and informed them of the situation. My husband and I sat and talked and cried and tried to make sense of the whole situation. My daughter and son came by to see how I was and to give support. I was numb, despair set in and I was just going through the motions of being "normal". That night, as I retired, I prayed for peace, insight, strength and the ability to endure what lied ahead of me. It was October of 2003. While I was asleep, the title, 411 Terrorists Within, kept popping in and out of my mind. Then the story started to unfold...almost like a movie. I would wake up and return to sleep. Over and over, the same dream. I finally got up and sat in the dark for some time, praying, crying and thinking of what was going on in my head. I finally got a tablet and began to scribe all this information and the title and feelings going on inside my mind and heart. I wrote and cried until my fingers hurt and my eyes were so swollen I couldn't see anymore. I put the tablet aside and went back to bed. I was finally able to get some much needed rest. When I woke up later that morning, I was sitting with my husband having coffee when I remembered the tablet. I picked it up and tried to read it. It was too fresh, too hard to read at that time. I sat it aside and continued the day. A few days later, I picked up the tablet again, read it and decided to type it on my computer. I shared it with my husband, daughter, son, mother and sisters. It was just my thoughts and feelings I wanted to share with them. I shared it with one of my doctors and was urged to have it published. She thought It would be very beneficial to patients, survivors and care givers as insight to the honest feelings of one going through such an ordeal, not just cancer patients. I shared it with a cousin, who is a published poet and author, and she thought it was worthy of publication, also.