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     This advent season has looked much different for me than last year. I’m glad that I journaled last year to be able to go back and look at what I was thinking and feeling. Honestly, much of my journal reflections from last year have been an encouragement to me. I try to read journal entries from a year ago each day. It is a reminder of God’s faithfulness to me and brings me hope. A lot can happen in a year. Last year was full of many lows. But I see God’s faithfulness to me in the people who came around and supported me, in my health and healing, and in my ability to have hope.  A year ago on this day I journaled about a quote I saw on Instagram: “The days only get brighter from here”. It was meant to be a hopeful post – a post about the winter solstice. However, when I read this post a year ago today after I had recently gotten diagnosed with cancer, it was hard for me to read. My world was dark with this diagnosis and I knew dark days full of treatment, surgeries, side effects,

  Me and my carrot tart from Thanksgiving Anastrozole      Unfortunately, finishing active treatment and being cancer free doesn’t mean your life goes back to the way it was before being diagnosed with cancer. I still have a few doctor’s appointments a month. I’m very thankful to not be planning my life around chemo infusions or radiation treatments but there’s also a scary side to being done with active treatment and being cancer free. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about a recurrence.      So now, I attempt to do what’s in my control to prevent recurrence. One thing I’m doing to prevent recurrence is taking anastrozole. Because my cancer was ER/PR+ (this means my cancer was hormonal), I am now on hormone therapy. Anastrozole suppresses my hormones so I have no hormones to feed cancer.      I take anastrozole every day at the same time. I’m thankful there is a pill I can take to work at preventing recurrence. Unfortunately, hormone suppression means my body will be in chemic