My journey

The sexual awkwardness that follows breast cancer can be devastating. I being a 55 year old woman am certain that my body image is great compared to most, but even so, I am deeply affected by the clumsiness that comes with sex after mastectomy. Breasts are such a comfortable part of sex, they are a dominate force in driving your sexual desire and they are the center of attention for foreplay. With their loss suddenly part of you becomes mute and unable to speak, unable to feel, unable to draw wanted attention. Now between you and the one you love is an empty space, a space neither of you can seem to bridge, his hands reaching then retreating. Because I chose not to get reconstruction there are scars left in the place my soft mounds of flesh use to reside and in the heart of my husband some resentment he may not even be aware of. We all make choices we think in our best interest and those choices affect everyone we love. Cancer was not my choice but rest assured I made an educated choice about how to deal with it and I know I made the best choice I could for me. I wish none of this had happened because the ripple effects seem to linger so much longer than one expects. No one can prepare you for all that follows a diagnosis like cancer, no one can prepare you for all the ways it will affect your life, no one can prepare you for all the losses that accompany having to remove body parts to have a chance to live. Life is such a journey of losses and gains it is our job to find all that is beautiful in this experience. For me the hardest part of the sexual dysfunction isn't how I feel but knowing someone who loves me finds it awkward to put his hands on my body, the person I love and share my bed with finds my body no longer sexually attractive. I am okay but he is not, cancer has robbed him just as much as it has robbed me and no one is talking to him about his losses. No one is asking him how it feels to run your hands over your wife's body and the fear that comes with missing the comfort of knowing where to place your hands. Without question we shall overcome our awkwardness just as we did when we were young lovers but until then we shall remain ever vigilant in our pursuit of each other and the joy that having a life mate to navigate through the world with. It was just yesterday we began our journey together and 35 years have come and gone, I think we shall weather this storm just fine. Life is full of uncertainty but I am certain love can fill the gap between my love and me!

My Jouney

The journey I am on is one that finds me looking upward, I look to the heavens for my hope, my peace and my strength. Life is so complicated, our entrance is marked with pain for the one who has carried us, others rejoice at our birth but only one knows the pain of our delivery. Pain and hardship are at the vein of our existence. We who spend a life time trying to deny that to be born means one must also die. We the human race who search out reasons to divide ourselves into little groups and deny our resemblance to our creator. Who are we that God is mindful of us, who are we to think we deserve anything? Who are we to place ourselves above any other? Who are we in the grand scheme of things?

Without love we are nothing! God is love and if we are made in His image then we too must be love. Love stands tall and sure in the midst of suffering. Love prevails over death and pain and lives eternal. Loves owes no debt. The power of love overcomes all the darkness in this world. Love overcomes fear and doubt. Love gives us courage to be free and to let go. Love is the great equalizer. Love gives us the strength to stand tall in the face of danger and pull the lost from certain destruction.  Love is our source and our strength. Love is power, power that is eternal, power that can cross time and space in a nano second, love that can reach down from the heavens and transform the heart of man. I shall look upward toward the heavens from which my strength comes and I shall not be afraid of all that life is and is not. I shall walk out my journey with the certainty of Gods love for me!

My Journey

This is the day that the Lord has made and I shall rejoice and be glad in it! On a beautiful October day my journey with breast cancer began with blood weeping from my breast. At the onset I knew there was something my body was trying to teach me. I think my breast wept for all my heartbreak, life it seems had a plan that I was not privy too. As a wife and mother I thought I must make everything perfect for those I loved, the weight of that expectation was crushing. I felt in so many ways I had failed my husband and children and had not given them what they needed to be happy themselves. Little did I know they had a destiny that did not include me, they had a calling on their lives just as important as all my ideas about them, so I had to let go and this is where my body began to mourn as I let go they became free and so did I. I have mourned many losses in my life but none like the letting go of what seemed to be my only true purpose, being their mother. I have never identified with anything so strongly as being John, Chase and Abigales mom. I never wanted anything more in life than to be a mom, it was always my highest calling so letting go and really trusting them and God with them was and is my greatest challenge yet in life. Today it seems cancer has been the catalyst God has used to open my hands and soften my grip so they can find their place in this world without me. I am walking out my destiny without holding on to them for security. I am finding out who I am without them and I think I like her. I see the world differently because cancer has stopped me from the madness of trying to make everything perfect and allowed me to embrace the beauty of imperfection. The imperfection of my missing breasts reminds me of the importance of letting go of things that may look beautiful but have the power to kill you if you hang on too long. I am renewed because I am letting go and trusting my higher power to lead me where I need to be. I am trusting where I am is where I am suppose to be and my identity comes from within not without. I am seeing people and the world as a beautiful place where tragic things happen that have the ability to bring about more beauty than the losses experienced. What cancer has taken cannot compare to all it has left me with, affirmation and love have filled me so full I must give it to others. I am more than I could ever hope to be because I have been graced with a sickness that may someday require my life but in truth the wake it has left in its path has opened my eyes to live a more beautiful life, so it is I who has gained, it is I who has thrived, it is I who win this battle because I have made cancer my teacher and I have become it student!

Women Supporting Women

My journey with Breast cancer began on a sweet October day. The smell of Autumn filled the air and I was cleaning my house feeling the joys of all my favorie holidays approaching. When I began to clean the mirror I noticed blood on my shirt just in front of my left nipple and upon inspection I found the blood was indeed weeping from my left Breast. There began the phone calls and the start of  a life changing event. In November I was diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Cancer and DCIS in my left Breast, it was Herr II positive, grade three with one tumor being almost 3 centimeters. I was blessed as there was no lymp node involvement. On December 1st I had a bilateral Masectomy, I wanted to be safe rather than have the constant worry of the other Breast developing cancer later, this was my decision and I opted to forgo reconstruction as well. Because of the type of cancer the grade and size of the tumor, chemo was the next best option to give me a fighting chance to have a great outcome, so on January 12th of this year I began chemo, ( Carboplatin, Taxotere, and Herceptine). I am now about to complete my chemo last treatment.  I can say I had a rough start due to a stomach virus during the first round of chemo but in truth it has been much easier than my mind had made it out to be. The most difficult moment for me was not the loss of my Breast but the loss of my hair as well. When seeing myself without hair and Breast I looked like my brothers and that felt harsh but in time I have  made friends with the person looking back at me and I realize she is on a journey and losses are part of her learning experience. The greatest help has been a positive outlook, your mind has power, keep everything as positive and normal as possible and you will find everything goes easier. I will be getting infusions of Herceptine for a full year so I will go every three weeks till next January for my treatment,  I decided to do everything possible now in hopes there will not be any reoccurrence. Only time will tell what the furture holds and my confidence lies in my higher power so I shall trust this Cancer has purpose.

Let me add a note to say this Cancer has served me in many ways. I am living a richer life in part because the weeping from my Breast woke me from apathy. I had been weeping internally for so many reasons I could not list them all. That day was a wake up call and I have been letting go of my perfectionism and enjoying the moment each and every day, I no longer take things for granted. I have become less judgemental and more accepting of people and life in general. I have fond an internal joy that I lost some time ago. Let this disease teach you how to live a better life and find the simple joys we have lost in trying to make a life for ourselves and our families.

My Journey

I am here sitting waiting out the weakness that has overtaken me. Today my strength has diminished but not left me completly. My body worn from all the assaults against it but still strong in its desire to overcome all that it has faced. I am able to do whatever is necessary to manage one more day. I feel certain I shall be stronger tomorrow. I feel certain my strength comes from my heart, soul and mind, trusting that all these experiences have undergirded me with hope, peace and love deeper than I knew possible. Everything that we face has purpose and meaning, everything we go through changes us at the very core of our being. Change has made me become dependent on the God of my understanding and trusting that in his infinite wisdom he has ordained my existence and everything that comes my way, so if I trust him then I have no need to fear. So today trust shall be the word of my heart and fear shall echo on deaf ears for I am more than an overcomer in Christ my Lord, I am mighty in faith, hope and love. Peace shall carry me when all else has failed for I am surrendered to this day and moment and I will walk out my truth and faith headed toward the prize of my calling, Christ my Lord. Without faith I am nothing but a hopeless experiment in evolution, with no real beginning only a certain end. I shall walk out my faith until I see the face of God and my hope is you shall too, for in our weakness we come to understand that our strength comes from our dependence on God!

My Journey

Winter never looked so grey. The isolation of cold, snow and ice only compound the darkness I am fighting within. This darkness is in the mind and at work against me, whispering things that make me overwhelmed with the physical battle I am in. This battle is one I am certain to win but nonetheless while it is waging on I feel beaten down, if only for the moment. I have never lived more in the present as anything more leaves me so restless I want to run. My body is weak and tired but my mind thinks it should be able to do more than it ever could. I am grateful for I am doing so much better than I though I ever would but still I want this over. I want nothing more than not having to live in fear that  if I hug someone I may catch an illness my body can't fight off. I want to engage in the world in a new and different way than I have ever before. I want to break out of my routine and be bold and brazen and carefree. I want the confines of winter and the constraints of this treatment to be behind me. I am blessed and I know that so I am not railing against God, I am just expressing the restlessness of my heart. I am just looking forward to the days of sunshine and  being treatment free. I am hoping against all hope that spring is coming and I am going to be able to enjoy it as I never have before. My life took a turn I wasn't expecting and I am going to learn all I can while in this struggle, because I am human. My humanity is being raised to a higher level due to my fight and my humanity is finding that were it not for the God of my understanding I would have been too broken to fix. I shall make it through this never ending winter and I shall sail the high seas and take in all the beauty this earth has to offer, after I fight the fight that is before me. I shall face this life with a new understanding and I shall break free from the frozen earth to claim my place in the sunshine once again. I will be glad for everyday of struggle will only make the beauty of my furture more vibrant! Today I shall find sunshine threw the clouds!