broken and rebuilt

When I got the news about my pathology in 2007 I was standing in the McWane Science Center parking deck.  I heard the words “cancer has metastasized to your sentinel lymph node” and I felt my world crumbling around me as I felt our unborn child kick inside me.

I would never say something like “cancer was a blessing because all it taught me.”  I would much rather have continued to live my wonderful happy life with my cute husband, great job, wonderful friends, aspirations and dreams.  Life was wonderful and then we got cancer.

But, then after a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, stares as a young bald pregnant woman, delivering an adorable baby, more chemo, a double mastectomy and reconstruction.  After loosing my husband’s father to cancer, my husband being transferred to a new state, selling the home that was my creative outlet during my treatment, leaving all the friends who helped us survive cancer.  After all that.  We lived!!!

We learned how to put the pieces back together and I realized that my life and our family’s life had so dramatically changed because of this that I started Hope Scarves.  I had the guts, determination and drive to take this scary time in my life and turn it into something positive.  And it caught on!  The organization grew from me sending out scarves from our spare bedroom to an international nonprofit organization with three part time staff people in 2 years.  It touched people.  It helped people. It brought people hope.  And it brought me hope.

And we lived our life. It wasn’t that Bennett never knew his mom before cancer.   I am me because of all I have faced.  We lived the last 6 years in pure joy.  We embraced each day to the fullest, we laughed and joked and dreamed.  Each day!  I didn’t live in fear of a reoccurrence.  Even when I watched other people face cancer for a second time or learned of people who died.  I was so full of hope.  I lived each day to the fullest and I really believed we had fought our fight.

But then, I found myself in a parking deck again.   This time with a stage 4 metastatic diagnosis.  These past days have been darker and harder than the first diagnosis.  The words terminal.  The lack of set “course of treatment.”  The different opinions from doctors and one doctor in particular who took away my hope when she told me she thought my disease would progress quickly.

I have never been broken. I’ve been sad… my first love dumped me (and left me with his gross pet snake), my grandfather passed away and I can’t hear his funny stories anymore.  I’ve been stressed and overwhelmed.  But, I have never been broken.

This week I broke.  I was so overwhelmingly sad that I physically couldn’t stop shaking.  I could not eat.  I was in the hospital twice.  I could not look at my kids without crying.  I couldn’t talk to my friends because the jealousy I felt as I listed to laughter in their house or saw their smiling pictures on facebook was too much.  I couldn’t go about my life because it all seemed so damn unfair. Life was moving around all around me. Yet, mine was over.

I have terminal advanced stage 4 breast cancer.

But, if I had let the diagnosis of breast cancer 6 years ago ruin my life – look at all I would have missed.   I took that diagnosis and scary time in our life and turned it into something positive.  I am a mother, a wife, a friend, a daughter and more.  These are roles I cherish with all my heart and have brought me so much joy.  I started Hope Scarves – through which I have been able to pass along the determination and strength that was first given to me when I needed it and in doing so have fulfilled more professional aspirations and connected to more amazing people than I could have ever hoped.

So, what do I do with this new reality?  I choose to take it as the next turn in our adventure.   I have to.  Instead of being sad because I can’t just stress over carpool routes and orthodontist appointments.  I have to recognize that I have one amazing and fabulous life to live.  And I am living it.  Right now!

I don’t know if this cancer will progress quickly. I might have one year, 3 years, 5 years maybe even more… people do it. There are some really smart people out there investigating new medicines and treatments right now.

I do know that someday, sooner than I wish, my amazing children will have to say goodbye to their mommy (hopefully by then they just call me mom).  I might not live to fulfill all the wild dreams my cute husband and I have for each other. But, this can’t be what I focus on.

I have to focus on putting as much of me into the people I love as I can while I am here.   Loving as deeply as I can right now.  Laughing with friends, breathing in the fresh air, loving and living and embracing each amazing day.

It is not easy.  I am still mad and sad and angry.   But, I also have faith and love and determination… and hope.

Today, I choose hope.