I'm Baaaaack!!!

I’m baaaack!!! After what, FOUR YEARS??!!!

Where else would I be??!! It feels so good to be back to one of my favorite places… and that is taking others along with me on my journey and sprinkling motivation along the way. Well, we have some catching up to do, so let’s get into it!!!

Back in 2019, I’d just finished chemo, a mastectomy, and radiation for stage 3 breast cancer. I was getting used to hormone therapy, which I was told I would be on for the next 5 -10 years. Fast forward 3 years (2021) and my scans show that I had stage 3 colon cancer (unrelated to the breast cancer). My breast oncologist calls and says “Hey, we’re going to stop the hormone therapy since the colon cancer supersedes it at this point.”

So, I start treatment for the colon cancer and within a year (2022), I’m told it had advanced to stage 4. Because the cancer had spread to my spine, my prognosis was about 10 months. I literally turned into a clinical research student overnight, looking for any possible way to defy the odds! Things really started looking up for me and in such a short period of time. Within 3 months, my scans would show no evidence of disease and that my spine was healing.

I continued to scan every 3 months and the following year (2023) the cancer started to appear again in my spine, but nowhere else. I decided it was time to get a second opinion. The first thing they asked me was if a biopsy had been done on my back. It hadn't been. Three weeks later their biopsy revealed that it was actually the breast cancer that was spreading in my back and that there was no signs of the colon cancer. Whaaaatt???????!!!!!! Deep breath. I’d been misdiagnosed and taken off hormone therapy too soon which is why the breast cancer returned.

So here I am, back on the cancer roller coaster. This time around, though, I want to open up more and share things that I go through, things that will inspire you, things to comfort you, things to empower you, things that keep you focused on living beyond the oppression of cancer... I am back!!!