There are things about cancer you may not know. Things your friends or family battling cancer won’t share with you so I’ll share it for them.

First, not one cancer diagnosis is like the other & neither are the treatment plans. We are all different in our own special way & we are just trying survive each day.

Second, we constantly feel like a failure & a burden. Our bodies are tired but we are tired of being tired. We do not want to feel sick all the time. We want to be more involved but some days it is just too hard. Please give us grace & maybe an extra hug or two but don’t linger too long or we will get hot. Ha! (Laugh, it’s a joke)

Third, (& maybe the most important) we struggle with the before cancer, during cancer, & after cancer. Looking back on photos is hard.
*Did she have cancer then?
*Look how happy she was!
I miss having a crazy amount of energy. I miss playing rough with my kids because I have a port on one side & a tissue expander on the other. I miss “before” cancer B. She was fun & badass. But I’ll never be her again. There are parts of her still here, the strong parts that will always survive but I will never be untouched by cancer. I can only now be, a cancer survivor.

I’m not sure what “after” cancer B looks like yet but I know I intend to do a lot more living & giving & just enjoying the moments as much as I can. Cancer can try all it wants but it is going take a lot more to keep this B down! 😘🤘🏼

It’s just hair, they said, it’ll grow back! It’s just a year, when referring to my treatment plan, it’ll go by fast! It’s just 4 weeks post mastectomy surgery before you can hold your baby (which turned into 8 weeks plus add in a week for the port placement surgery).

Recovery from a mastectomy surgery was/still is hard. Chemo is/has become my worst nightmare. But the hardest & absolute worst part of all of this is going from the mom who did EVERYTHING for my 2 yr old to not being able to do anything.

Yes, her dad helps but he works 24 hour shifts which could easily turn into 72 hour shifts. We figured out a schedule that worked for our family & up until my diagnosis, it worked just fine.

Chemo with a toddler is extremely difficult. She’s always on the go & I never feel 100%. The biggest years of her life are slipping thru my fingers faster than I could have ever imagined. A year sounds very optimistic in the cancer world, it’s an eternity in a toddler’s world.

I miss being the mom who did everything, I miss squeezing my baby tight. Cancer sucks, chemo sucks more.

Today was rough.

Today was REALLY long.

TODAY was a reminder to MYSELF just how strong I really am.

But as for today, I owe all my strength & gratitude to those on shift & right where they needed to be today on the chemotherapy floor. It was scary for all of us. A pre-med drug caused the reaction, a reaction that no one had seen from an anti-nausea medication. The pain in my lower back was so bad there was about 5 to 15 seconds I wanted to die. One poor nurse started to say on a scale from 1 being the lowest and…. I said 13!!! This level of pain does not exist on a chart! Doc said morphine NOW & slowly but FINALLY the pain started to subside. My chest was no longer tight & I stopped white knuckling the chair I had been comfortably sitting in 20 minutes prior.

My husband & I have joked about how we don’t do anything small. 1 in a million chance of having a reaction to this particular drug they said… well I owned that 1 in a million BIG TIME!!! 🤣

I don’t ever want a redo of today. I’ll be perfectly happy not ever feeling that level of pain for the rest of my life. Cancer is not for the weak, that much I know after today.

A day in the life of… well… MY life these days.

I refuse to define myself because of a cancer diagnosis. I’m a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend. I’m many things but I am NOT cancer.

What was supposed to be a routine checkup with my lady parts doctor quickly turned into the beginning of a long journey I was not prepared for, none of us were prepared for.

– mammogram
– biopsy
– MRI
– mastectomy of the right breast
– port placement

& today was the bone & CT scan.

My weeks have turned into nothing but appointments after appointments. Info on top of more info. More people have seen my boobs in the past 2 months than have my whole entire life!

I’m still trying to cope with being down a nipple only to be told my hair will start falling out as soon as 2 weeks after chemo starts… first chemo treatment is in 2 days!!!

I share all of this to say… enjoy ALL the moments of your life (BIG & small!). Do the things that bring you the most joy. Tmro is not promised, neither is both nipples or your hair apparently.