I am officially halfway through my chemotherapy treatments! I will get an ultrasound of my left breast and axilla area to evaluate how well the masses and lymph nodes have responded to the Adriamycin/Cytoxan regimen. Next Friday I’ll be switched to a different chemotherapy drug Taxol. Four more infusions and chemo will be over. My main symptoms have been exhaustion and changes in how food tastes. Basically everything tastes terrible. The anti-nausea drugs are just incredible at controlling nausea so that hasn’t been an issue and I’m thankful for that.

I’m getting more comfortable with my bald head. Brielle, my youngest said to me tonight, “I love hugging you now, because I can really hold onto your head.” Cue aggressive palming of my bald head. I laughed. I’m glad she’s finding the positives.

Brielle has always had a way of saying things that make us laugh. See video below:

This was taken at least five years ago. That girl was so stubborn about brushing her teeth. We have a running joke in our family now where we reference this video. Jeff tonight said, “I need my life to go back to the way it was before I took my belt off and my pants started falling down.”

Ava a few weeks ago, “I need my life to go back to the way it was before the air conditioner broke.”

I’ve said several times in the last few months, “I need my life to go back to the way it was before I got cancer.”

But here’s the thing that I know about challenges arising in my life…the changes that come are not purely negative. In fact it’s quite the opposite.

I remember a warm summer night in 2014. I laid in the backyard of my parent’s house looking up at the stars and asked why? I didn’t want to know what divorce felt like. I didn’t want to know what it felt like to be alone. I didn’t want to know what it felt like to be an adult still living in my parent’s home. I didn’t want my girls to know what it felt like to be split in two, always between two homes and two parents. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t know how to stay without hurting myself. I didn’t want to be unhappy anymore, but there I was with the silence of my own tears streaming from my eyes wondering if I’d ever be happy again. Because it sure didn’t feel possible at the time. The universe shone above me and I felt a sliver of hope that it could be possible.

And you know what? Slowly I rebuilt my life. I did my best to be the best mother to my girls. I graciously accepted help and love from my friends, family and hometown. I went to work. I went back to school. I endured 5 years of dating that yielded the best man I’ve ever known. That man knelt beside me on Monday as I woke up before he left for a week of being on the road and told me I was his queen and then he said a prayer for us. I have been blessed with another daughter because of him. I’m grateful every day to be sitting front row to the wonder that is my children. All three of them.

There is going to be a line drawn in my life dated March 29th, 2024. My life before cancer, and my life after cancer. While there are many things I don’t want to be experiencing because of cancer, I know there are things that will come that will enhance my life because of cancer. And so I will live patiently, expecting the good that will come with the bad. Knowing that I will be better, stronger, living more authentically than I did before cancer came to interrupt my plans.