Remember those days when you looked in the mirror at your balding head? Or looked at your body that had changed in the blink of an eye? Those moments for me were the silver linings to this journery. My breast cancer was not unique. I am your sister, your friend. I shared the same fears. But when I got through the shock, the surgery, the chemo and started to put my life back together, I had a choice. The hormone blockers did not agree with me but what choice did I have? So I put a note on my desk with the distances for a sprint triathlon …..I read that note everyday for 9 months until I competed in my first tri! I worked hard to prepare but that note was my inspiration….I read books, talked to people that had done them. I got my brain wrapped around the concept and got my body ready.
Go after any passion that you have..if you like to bake cookies, then sister, start baking. Do not get up in the morning thinking about how bad you feel but about how many cookies you are going to bake that day and what kind! What a happy thought!
If you like to read to children, read on! Think about the lives you will touch by taking books into schools and reading….
It is all about PASSION! Do it, share it, breathe it, eat it and pass it on. It will take over your illness and will propel you to wellness. We do not know how many days we will be well. For the 20 months following my double mastectomy, I competed in an 8k and a 10 k running event, 2 sprint triahlon’s, metric century bike ride and ran a half marathon the day AFTER I was diagnosed with a malignant recurrent tumor on my chest. I begin radiation tomorrow so to prepare for that, I ran 1.5 miles today.
I am blessed beyond compare. I will never, never, never give in to cancer.