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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, surge...

  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, ho...

    I’ve been looking back at pictures of my hair growth from the past four months and am so thankful my hair is growing! One of my fears while going through chemo was that my hair would not grow back.      Several people have asked me if cold capping “worked”. I think that all depends on how you define “worked”. If you define it as not losing your hair, then it did not work for me. If you define it as your hair growing back in fairly quickly and thick, it did work. I’m so thankful for the hair on my head and do think the painful experience of cold capping was worth it for me. Hair growth post-chemo is different for everyone but here is what it has looked like for me: 8 weeks post-chemo: Enough hair for a buzzcut! And eyebrows and eyelashes starting to grow back! 13 weeks post-chemo: Enough hair for little frizz and spikes! 15 weeks post-chemo: Hair that you can move your fingers through! 16 weeks post-chemo: Enough hair to create a part. Now combing my ha...

     As of Wednesday, October 5, 2022 I am technically considered cancer free. Honestly, finishing radiation and being able to say I am cancer free feels kind of anticlimactic. They don’t do any end of treatment scans to ensure I am cancer free so it’s hard for me not to let my mind wander and worry that there is still cancer in my body. But, I have to trust my doctors when they tell me that all the treatment I have gone through has rid my body of the cancer they found almost a year ago.      The day I finished radiation was a “normal” Wednesday. I woke up at 5:30am, showered, made coffee, picked up my friend/mentor, and drove to the West Cancer Center (just as I had done almost every morning for the past 7 weeks). What was different about this morning was me bringing my friend/mentor and it being the last day I had to lay on the table and receive radiation.      It’s wild for me to think about all that has happened in the past 10 months. ...

*I wrote this entry and forgot to post it! Here is a late entry. As of 10/5, I finished radiation!      I have THREE more radiation sessions! I am very ready to be done with radiation. I’m ready to not have to wake up early and drive to the West Cancer Center everyday. I’m ready for my skin to heal and not be burnt and peeling. I’m ready to have my energy back and not be tired all the time.      Thankfully, these last five sessions are called boosts and I am only receiving radiation in a very targeted area. Before I started treatment, I got three small dot tattoos so they can line me up correctly for radiation each day. In addition to the tattoos, they also place a sticker on me to help with alignment. For my boost sessions they placed three stickers on me and told me to do my very best to keep them on for the last five sessions. This is actually quite hard. Especially when your friends are having a pool party. I’m planning to not swim at the pool party to...

                                                        An update is long overdue. Although, the reason I haven’t given an update in so long is because I have been completely exhausted by radiation and school.      Today was radiation session #18 out of 30. 12 more left! Actually receiving radiation is very easy and fast. I lay on the table super still and can’t feel the radiation. I’m only on the table for about 5 minutes so the longest part is waiting for my turn.      Waking up early, driving to radiation, and then going to teach Kindergarten has proved to be very challenging. It’s challenging both because I am exhausted and not feeling well as well as because it’s hard for me to not get down about not being able to work as well as I used to. I don’t like not being able to be the teacher I want to be because ...

     On Monday I met my radiation oncologist for the first time. Although I don’t want to go through radiation, I am thankful to be moving forward with my treatment plan. After radiation will be hormone therapy (a pill) for 5-10 years. So radiation feels like the last step in my active treatment plan. My radiation oncologist told me that I would need 5 or 6 weeks of radiation. Radiation is every day. Before I can start radiation, I have to have a CT scan. Before I can have the CT scan, I have to get preauthorization from the insurance company.      What a year this has been. What’s crazy to me is that it hasn’t even been a year since my initial OBGYN appointment when I was sent for an ultrasound.      Three days until I go back to teaching. I have mixed emotions for sure. I feel excited to be with children and have something else to occupy my time and thoughts. I feel nervous to jump back into something so exhausting and demanding. I’m pray...