Yesterday during conversation… it was brought up, can you imagine if someone had told you last year…. at this time…. that…..
- You would be diagnosed with Stage 3 Breast Cancer
- You will completely change your lifestyle
- You will lose 30lbs and be thinner than you have ever been in your entire life, except maybe when you were 12
- You will have gone through chemo
- You will have people help you in ways you never imagined
- You will have new friends like you never ever possibly imagined
- You will have lost all your hair, every stitch of hair, including eyebrows and eyelashes
- You will have had a double mastectomy and have some sort of resemblance of breasts
- You will not mind losing your own breasts
- You will love having no hair and you’ll decide to keep a very short buzz cut… dyed platinum
- You will be forced into medical menopause
- You’ll have had a pulmonary embolism
- You’ll have taken countless courses of antibiotics
- You’ll take blood thinners
- You will have insomnia from chemo
- You will be half way through radiation
- You will not be a photographer anymore
- You will have to give up your studio
- You will give up your photography business completely
- You will have a new job working with a caterer
- They will LOVE you A LOT!
- You will walk almost every single day and you’ll look forward to it
- You won’t drink anymore alcohol (is it possible?)
- You will give up sugar completely (unthinkable)
- You won’t eat hardly any meat except maybe some fish and occasionally some organic chicken
- You’ll drink your coffee with only cream & coffee will be your new found treat
- You won’t eat any wheat or gluten
- Your best friend and her family will move across the country to live near you and you’ll see each other almost every day
- You will have a circle of friends you may not have even known before
- You will have a condition that causes your arm to swell from breast cancer
- You will hardly be able to recognize certain aspects of yourself, your strength, your determination, your fears will subside, you are more able to conquer things
- You will hardly be able to remember things as simple as “don’t forget to pick up the dry cleaning” – thanks to chemo brain
- You will have to wear glasses because you will have lost vision due to chemo
- You will learn to love blue
- AND PINK!
- You will make it a focus to make sure people have an awareness about breast cancer
- You’ll need to have a hysterectomy because the medication caused a pulmonary embolism
- You will have to use your butt to make new boobs because you will have no other fat on your body
- You will have a completely new perspective on life, what matters most, what doesn’t matter at all
- Your family and friends will be never have been more important to you in your life
- You will have learned things about yourself never imaginable.
- You will have a restored faith in humanity
- You will realize that there are things in life that happen, sometimes really bad things and you realize that this is a part of change and as horrible as it can be… you learn to adapt and it becomes a part of who you are… but it doesn’t define you.
My newest change…