To Be Grateful

I am so grateful to be alive from  triple negative breast cancer making 11 years TNBC free and making 55 very soon.  I am grateful to have also survived 7 years free of Chondrosarcoma (primary bone cancer) in my pelvis as well as being an ovarian previvor for seven years due a familial history of it 🧬.  I was the fifth and youngest woman in my family to have gotten breast cancer (pre-menopause) and the first with a double cancer.

I’ve had a double mastectomy (breasts), an oophorectomy (ovaries) and salphingectomy (Fallopian tubes), an internal hemipelvectomy (left pelvis); ACT chemotherapy; breasts, pelvis and hip reconstruction; and many years of rehabilitation to relearn how to walk now with a cane and fancy rollerator.  I am grateful to be alive.

Losing all my womanhood parts, I could not have children or adopt with a second cancer. This was the hardest part of it all. I am grateful to be alive.

It’s a lot of loss including the years of my 40s. I have an entirely new, deformed, disabled, and reconstructed body with silicone implants, a cadaver pelvis, and titanium hip ball and femur. I am grateful to be alive.

I consider myself a champion of life, campione de la vida. I consider all of you, us, champions of life. I am grateful to be alive.

I believe in modern medicine.

I believe in integrative medicine with oncology treatment and surgeries.

I believe in the power of the arts to heal.

I believe in the power of faith to let go and not let worry control my life to be grateful.

I am grateful to be alive.

I dedicate my post to my mother who died of breast cancer in 1992 and would have been 87 yrs old this month.

Peace ☮️