Live View of the Running Ribbon

Here is a live action shot of the Susan G Komen for the Cure Running Ribbon. When I see this logo I think of Breast Cancer Awareness Month! October 2003 was the year I celebrated Breast Cancer Awareness every day from my annual mammogram on October 2nd to my Lumpectomy Surgery on the 27th. Whew I was busy that month and thereafter until January 23, 2004 when I completed my final radiation treatment.  After that, I slowed down enough to let the impact of it all sink in.          Now I just try to give back so that others may reach that day of realizing that they survived!

Breast Cancer....looking back to day one of the "journey"

Here is a picture of me...
 taken this past summer on my birthday
 with my husband and tow of our grandchildren!

Today I am celebrating my 8th anniversary as a Breast Cancer Survivor! Thinking about that day gives me pause to reflect on everything that diagnosis meant to me. I was so surprised! Not angry, worried or emotional, just surprise. Maybe shock is really the word.

I worked hard to prove it didn't bother me and that things were just as they were the day before. I did not want to be perceived as a victim or a weepy woman that was going to yo to pieces. I wanted to be strong and to show that I believed I would make it onto the other side of that mountainous journey they call Breast Cancer! But, I had a hard time waiting because I am the woman who wants to know everything now...the whole picture and know what I had to do to get through it. However, wait I did because the cancer crew just envelopes you in their net and you simply get on their circuit that takes you from one meeting to another over and over. I could not see what this treatment would look like and in my mind, I wanted to see it and get it done. Scared? No....just ready for it to all be behind me.

I forgot one thing though...cancer is like grief, in that you have to actually go through it to come out on the other side. You go through each day and the day after. You just do.....and I made it! I still think of the whole experience; it was quite a journey, but I made it.