March 4, 2022

Happy Friday y’all – it seems only fitting that my last day of chemo is the day after Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Day (link here).  In fact, thinking back, I started my chemo on 10/22 which was during Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Go figure right?

So, what am I feeling today you may ask?  I honestly don’t know if there are words to describe the way I am feeling at this moment.   Anxious and excited obviously, it’s 6:17 am and I have been up since 5:30 am catching up on some work because I couldn’t sleep.  Apprehensive, yes, a bit.  It seems so strange to go from no doctors appointments (pre-diagnoses) except for annuals and if you were sick, to visit a doctor (or two, or three) each week for the past 20+ weeks to next week back to having no weekly doctor’s appointments until my pre-operative appointments at the end of the month.  Happy?  I believe in one way, yes, I am happy.  Happy to not have poison put into my body next Friday.  Happy to be able to start recovering from all the poison it’s already had to endure.  Happy to be 1/3 of the way through this marathon.  Yes, I guess happy would cover that and yet in some ways, I am ambiguous as to what I feel at this moment.  

I am not scared of what is next.  I know that may be hard for some to believe, however, I’m not.  At the beginning of this journey, I chose FAITH over FEAR and that stands true today.  I have all the FAITH in the world for my doctors and the medical decisions that have been made thus far.  I am FAITHFUL that my God is still the ultimate healer and he is healing my body.  I have FAITH that I am stronger than I ever thought I was and I will get through the remaining steps of this journey and come out stronger in the end.  I am FAITHFUL that I will prevail.  

The parts that I struggle with, are defining who I am through this process and on the other side of this and wondering “Do I need to define who I am?”  I was listening to a survivor podcast yesterday and one of the topics was “When do you consider yourself a survivor?” and the message stated “From the time of diagnosis” which struck me as interesting and got me thinking of how true that really is.  Most people are considered survivors once the cancer is gone, once it has been physically removed from your body and the pathology report comes back to say that there is No Evidence of Disease (NED) in your body, but is that really the moment that you become a survivor?  I must say, I have thought about this a lot since hearing this message and I have to agree with the podcast.  I think the moment you are diagnosed with cancer and the moment you decide to step up to that plate and fight – you are a SURVIVOR.  I honestly don’t know how you could be considered any other way.

The mental and emotional part of this battle is as hard, if not sometimes, harder than the physical part of the journey.  I’ve told all of you before that I have struggled with all the adjectives used to describe me such as – inspiration, warrior, badass (okay, I like that one),  impressive woman, etc.  I don’t think that I am any of those things. I just believe that I made a decision – a decision to fight, a decision to change, change the way I was living, change the way I was thinking, change what information I held onto versus what I now chose to let go, change some of the people in my life – removing any of the toxic people from my life, and to change myself and how I reacted to this situation.  I made the decision then – to be a SURVIVOR.

I believe that God uses our experiences to change us.  I believe  He uses these chosen battles, although, hard/tough/scary/etc. to produce GOOD at the end of them.  Don’t get me wrong, we still have to go through the battle and carry some of the war wounds but in the end, I do believe the REWARDS and the LESSONS are bigger and better than anything we could have ever imagined. I believe that in the end, we are often reminded of why we had to go through the battle in the first place, and then like magic – it all makes sense.  

So today, I CELEBRATE walking through this part of my battle.  I will CELEBRATE my LAST DAY OF CHEMO and hug my favorite nurses (Brandi and Erin) goodbye.  Today I will celebrate ME and MY BODY and all that it has been through and I will allow it to REST and HEAL for the next month until our next battle (surgery).  Today I will allow myself to feel all the emotions (Happy, Sad, Tired, Anxious, Excited, Etc.).  Today I will just be …. 

Join me today by celebrating with me and feeling all your emotions too.  Trust me when I say, I know that I am not alone in this journey and that ALL OF YOU – have your own emotions you are feeling for me or a reminder of someone you have loved and possibly lost to cancer.  Today – let’s all celebrate together!! Today is a good day!!

Xo,

Tracy