Archive for December, 2010

I continue to be so surprised by all the things I cannot remember from my recovery…some things come back to me, others still don’t.  But as I sit and as I am by my sister’s side, it comes back just like a blessing for us both.  I shared the details around the biopsy, the MRI and the lead up to going in for surgery…all things that seem would have been completely forgotten, but they come back now.

So my gift of experience is such a special thing.  I’ve always adored my sister and strive to give her things that she’d appreciate and would help, warm her heart and make her smile…

This time, no one can give her what I can – my support in a way that’s tailored to her…my experience shared to help her.  So strange how life comes around in circles…never would I want to be there to help anyone else go through breast cancer as I don’t want anyone to bear the beast.  But, for me, I’ve been there to help so many her in sharing my words here…and to take it, really for the first time in person, to help another, my sister, is breath taking in so many ways.

She’s a fighter and I know even a greater warrior than me, so I take my hat off to her for what she’s endured already and to what’s to come where I know she’ll shine…and like me, smile :)   2010 can’t leave us soon enough.

At any point when it comes to choices or decision making these days, I ask myself…”If cancer were to come back, did I make the most of the new beginning I saw from it striking me”? I’ve put such a value on my “time” and to ensure I can make the most of it…so this has led me to really simplifying life and striving to do what matters most in the end.

I’ve made so much more free time for me and for others that are in need around me. Little did I realize that cancer would come back to bite me so soon! Not in my body, but to one so very close to me.

Shocking news to the whole family just as my situation seems to have settled with us all…but now, it has struck my sister, 5 years elder, mom to 4 lovely children. She’s in surgery for a lumpectomy today and we sit with her children and ours in a down time day watching holiday videos .. What to do? For me, its so much easier being the patient than on the sidelines knowing so deeply what she is facing — in procedures, mind and heart.

We know she is in great hands…the hands of my medical team and with her loving husband waiting for her to come out to the recovery room.

I know I continue to be in so many of your prayers but now I ask you to extend it to Anna. We are all well and again know there is even more strength to gain by such an experience…Cancer By The Day.