Early Stage Favorite Blog Posts



Getting a Mammogram...Probably Saved My life

My Journey Beyond Shock

The Cancer Card...If You've Got It, Play It

Blessings in Disguise

How Do We Tell Our Children I Have Cancer?

Keep Calm and Hurdle On

The Thought of Losing My Hair

Breast Expanders...What-are-They-and-How Do They Work?

Preparing for a Mastectomy...Care Package Ideas








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All Sickness Ain't Death

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"All Sickness Ain't Death." (2017) Four words that came to me for the first time in nearly 28 years as I laid in the hospital bed wondering what was going on with my body. And while I felt so miserable, I began to get nervous as I laid there.  Was I going to get better?  But then all of of a sudden George and this phrase jumped in my head, and I reminded myself this was just a bump in the road. I was just ill for the moment. 

     "All Sickness Ain't Death." (1989) The four words my Intro to Social Work professor quietly wrote on the chalkboard while we took our first exam.  After he wrote them, he never really explained them. He left them there on the board for our own brains to ponder.
     What those four words meant to him had to be profoundly different than what they meant to us...a bunch of freshmen just happy to be at college and free from home. He knew this, of course. We were clueless of the oppression, segregation, and racism that this man had …
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Preparing for a Mastectomy...Care Package Ideas

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The Double Mastectomy Decision
     The decision to have a double mastectomy is not an easy one.  In your head, it quickly makes the most sense...get rid of the boobs, get rid of the cancer.  But of course, it is not that easy.  Your breasts are a part of your body, a part of your self, a part of your sexuality.  Unfortunately, women often have to make this decision quickly.  Suddenly they are not only faced with a cancer diagnosis, but the difficult questions of removal and reconstruction.  It is important to remember that removing both breasts does not completely take away the risk of having breast cancer again. Though it is minimal, there is still some breast tissue left.  Many women choose to remove both for symmetrical reasons, with the hope that they will look the same. 
     In August 2012, I was diagnosed with breast cancer on one side, and only needed a single mastectomy. I was suddenly face with this difficult decision.  A few days later, I was offered a chance to participate …
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Enduring Uncertainty

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Can you endure your uncertainty until it shows you another way? 
     Uncertainty causes anxiety as it attempts to make you feel powerless. Uncertainty steals your ability to control situations in your life that you so desire to control. While struggling to hold on to some small piece of control, you desperately search for a new path, a new way to survive, even it is only temporary.  The horrifying uncertainty begins the second you hear those words..."You have Metastatic Breast Cancer."
      I have been faced with the challenge of enduring uncertainty too many times over the past several years. Progression is found and the immense feelings of uncertainty hits again. You start a new treatment, and there is a small sense of relief...maybe this is the way. But then you don't know what the side effects will be like, or if your body will even be able to tolerate this new drug or multiple drugs. How long will this treatment work...maybe 6 months, 12 months, or maybe I will…
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