A few early mornings ago, when my eyes were blurry with sleep and I was holding my three-year-old son, I walked right into the corner of a door. I slammed my little toe -- hard -- and I'm pretty sure it's broken. It's red and swollen. It hurts and throbs. It barely fits in a shoe. And the pedicure I got the other day -- a not-so-wise choice, I know -- really caused my baby toe a lot of discomfort.

Yesterday, while wearing cute little sandals -- to show off my french pedicure, of course -- I followed my husband and two little boys on an outdoor adventure down a steep cliff. Our destination was a stream -- the boys love water -- and while I didn't tumble and fall down the hill, I did gain a lot of momentum on my descent and ended up running full force toward the stream -- directly into a boulder of a rock, where my other little baby toe scraped right across a jagged edge. A chunk of skin hung off my toe, blood seeped out, and I hopped around on my other foot -- with its own possibly broken toe -- while the pain eased up a bit. And then I sat down and contemplated my recent toe misfortune.

My injured toes, along with an itchy, irritating skin rash I suspect is due to an allergy of some sort, have caused me some amount of stress. But it's not major, it's not debilitating, and it's doesn't even compare to the stress of cancer.

I keep playing this cancer comparison over in my head -- minor pain vs. major pain, minor stress vs. major stress. Others in my life are doing the same. My fitness trainer, who has been on crutches for weeks and weeks with a broken foot, told me when she feels down about her condition, she reminds herself, it's not cancer.

Life has become a matter of perspective for me like never before. Cancer set the bar. And now all other life issues go up against this bar -- and any that are not a matter of life and death I realize are just not so bad.

So I have two sore toes. And itchy skin. But I don't have cancer -- anymore -- and so life is just fine.