7. Nikki Giovanni
In 1995 poet and activist, Nikki Giovanni, was diagnosed with lung cancer. She refused to associate with negative outlooks for her future and fired one of her oncologists for setting a date for her death. She underwent surgery and lost a lung but is living, healthy as a cancer survivor. And nearly ten years afterward, Giovanni’s life is still thriving.
In a 2014 interview with NPR, poet Nikki Giovanni explained that giving herself time to be sad about her lung cancer diagnosis helped her focus on getting better. She stated: “So the first thing I had to say to myself was, OK I need a doctor. I need good doctors. But I also knew that it made me incredibly sad, and if anybody who’s listening to us has been diagnosed with cancer, it is just – you don’t want to hear it – it’s a very sad thing. And I said to myself, OK I know that if I allow myself to be sad, I’m going to make myself worse. So what I have to do is find time to be sad and then I have to go about my business of trying to see if I can find a way – not to defeat cancer; I would never, ever, ever use those words – but to live with it.” Article orginally seen on More Magazine.