It’s Breast Cancer Awareness month and I’m also just shy of hitting my 5th anniversary of being cancer-free. It’s a reason to celebrate and I am so grateful to not just be here, but to have shared in so many wonderful memories with my family and friends over these last few years.

Other than sharing my initial diagnosis and a reminder each October about the importance of getting your mammogram, I haven’t shared a lot about my journey. I am a private person and I never wanted cancer to be at the forefront of any conversation. The reality is that while cancer will never define me, it’s part of me now.

At the time of my diagnosis, I still had a daughter in high school and I didn’t want her to be the girl whose mom had cancer. So, I stayed quiet. I let only the people who needed to know and those closest to me know what was going on.
I walked every morning, I kept my routine the same except for the daily detour to the hospital.
I plowed through just trying to make it to the end of treatment. I did it. I survived and 5 years later I’m still here, cancer-free, but that is just part of the story.

The truth is that I was in such shock over my diagnosis that I had a difficult time accepting it, let alone sharing it. Knowing that something like cancer, heart disease, or a random car accident can happen to any of us at any time is one thing, but having it happen, jolts us out of our complacency in an instant.

As I said in my blog 5 years ago, one minute you’re living your best life choosing bathroom tiles and the next you have a doctor sitting knee to knee with you informing you that you have cancer. You can’t prepare yourself for that kind of shock. You can’t prepare yourself for the onslaught of tests or the sheer number of doctors and technicians who will examine and treat you over the next year. I believe not knowing what was coming was somewhat of a blessing as I couldn’t get ahead of myself in the process. I just took it all as it came and tried to make the best decisions with the information that I was given.

Cancer is such a disruption mentally, physically, and biologically. There isn’t a single sacred space that doesn’t get disrupted. You can’t think about anything else because it’s a constant in your life. Your marriage, your relationships with your kids, and your family all change. You know your body is going to change whether you choose to go the least invasive route or you choose a double mastectomy and biologically, cancer has disrupted how your cells are supposed to function. It feels like it has taken over every part of your being and the overwhelm that comes along with that is almost more than a person can take in. As the day of my surgery approached, I began to realize that things would never quite be the same again.

I remember a few days after surgery, one of my daughters and her now husband came home to visit. It was a planned trip and I was happy for the distraction. One day while they were there my husband looked at me and said, “I have something to tell you and it falls into the good category.”

I immediately replied, “Did you lose your job?”

He said, “Let’s try this again. I am going to tell you something that falls into the good category.”

It’s like my brain was in such a fog and bad news had been such a constant that I couldn’t even register what he was saying. Once he felt like I was on the same page, he tried again.

Our daughter’s boyfriend had taken him to lunch that day to ask permission to marry our daughter. It was good news and I cried thinking about the happiness amid all the uncertainty. That’s how life works though, isn’t it? The earth keeps spinning, people keep living and life keeps happening around you even though you feel like it has all stopped.

That same day, my surgeon called to tell me the margins were clear and the cancer had not spread to my lymph nodes, but it appeared I was going to need chemo. I was devastated. More disruption. They had been so certain that they caught it early enough that I wouldn’t need anything, but radiation. Once again, the shock set in, and the tears came. Then she told me there was another test they could run to determine how effective chemo would be for me. I agreed and went in the next day to be tested for my Oncotype DX. After a couple of weeks, my results came back a little on the fence but it was determined that the risks of chemotherapy were not worth the benefits and therefore, I could forgo chemo and just do radiation. It was one of the first wins in my journey and I felt like a little piece of my life had been returned to me. The prospect of radiation felt like a cakewalk compared to what I had been facing.

My first and only tattoos were for radiation. I called my girls that day and told them I got 3 new tattoos, one for each of them. They weren’t impressed.

The next week I began daily radiation treatments for a month and on November 16th, 2018 they announced that my radiation was complete and that I was cancer-free.

Ending treatment is such a milestone to be celebrated and it truly feels like you have accomplished something and you have. You have survived.

Two weeks later, I began taking Tamoxifen, which is a hormone therapy for breast cancer. It blocks the estrogen from getting to the cells. My oncologist felt like given my age and the stage of my cancer I would benefit from taking this for 10-15 years. I immediately had hot flashes, weight gain, lethargy, and brain fog. I felt short-tempered and on edge for quite some time and all ll I could think about was quitting the drug. After about a year of side effects and being thrown into menopause, I surrendered to it all. This was my new normal and this was the price I was going to pay for my life. A small price in the big picture.

I wish this was the end of my story, but it’s not. The end of treatment is never the end of the story. Going through the journey of ridding your body of cancer is just the first chapter. You don’t realize it at the time, but at least for the first 5 years, you will see your oncologist every few months. You will have exams, mammograms, and MRIs. In the in-between, you will feel grateful and full of life, and then as the next 6-month check comes up, the anxiety will creep in and you will wonder what you will do if it’s back.
Fortunately for me, it hasn’t come back. I’ve had one close call where they thought it had returned and that was enough for me. I questioned every decision I had made, but as my doctor said, “We make the best decisions we can at the time and we don’t look back. If it returns, we will deal with it then.”

Time feels uncertain after something like this. It changes you in every way, but if you look at it in just the right light you will see the blessing in it. You will see that being jolted out of complacency is a gift. You will be reminded once again of that trite, but oh-so-true phrase, life is indeed short.

So, as I approach my 5th anniversary of being cancer-free, I urge you to get your mammogram. A routine mammogram saved my life and it could save yours as well. I had no warning, no palpable lump, no family history to speak of, and no reason to believe I would be diagnosed with breast cancer.

Call and make your appointment today and if you need encouragement or a pep talk, I’m here for you.