My Story

This is where my blog all started……………

Thank you so much for reading my new blog. I was on Caringbridge and Facebook, but decided to move all of my updates here. My hope is for you to read feeling a little less alone and a little more encouraged.

For those of you who don’t know or who need a recap, here you go! This is a long one, I promise the other entries will NOT be this long.

I was a tightly wound busy body. Like, busy all the time. Loved running, fitness, Jesus and spending time having fun with my family and friends. I ate super clean: gluten free, dairy free and corn free. Life was good. I have a super handsome and kind husband (Jeremy), a beautiful and smart daughter (Liv), 2 adorable happy go lucky male Yorkies (Jack and Buddy) and we own a successful plumbing business.

This is us at Strawberry Park Hot Springs in Steamboat Springs Aug 2017

Here is where it all started. My 2 friends and I (Regina and Sara) went to visit my Aunt Nanny and Uncle Cowboy in Colorado Springs and to run in the Take 5 Garden of the Gods race. It was such a beautiful place to run. Lots of hills. We were running like 6 minute miles- super fast for us. Around mile 3, I started to get a huge side ache, which is very unusual for me. It hurt so bad, I had to walk a lot of the race. Regina and Sara are the bestest and walked with me. I ended up getting my gallbladder out a couple of weeks later, in May of 2017. This is me, Sara and Regina after the race. Of COURSE I did a jumping pic with a gallbladder attack!

Fast forward to September 2017. I was babysitting our good friend’s baby, Elliot. She was really little so I held her all day. That night, I had a terrible side pain. So bad that I had to go to the ER. I knew I had a hematoma (an internal bruise) from the gallbladder surgery, so I figured holding the baby all day triggered something with that. The ER Doc ran a CT scan and it turned out that I had a softball sized tumor on one of my ovary’s. That was a Thursday.

The following Monday, I was able to get in with my OBGYN to talk about removing the tumor. She wasn’t planning on giving me a full exam since it was more of a pre op appointment, but for some reason she decided to. She found a lump on my left breast. It wasn’t super obvious, it was really high up near my collarbone.

That Friday, Jeremy and I went to get the lump mammogramed and biopsied. They told us it looked like early stage breast cancer. I remember standing there looking at the images and just hearing myself asking what we need to do next. Our daughter’s 11th birthday party was that night. We made it through the birthday party and Liv had a lot of  fun. I remember being kind of shell shocked and having a hard time being present. That Monday after the birthday party, I got the call that it was in fact breast cancer. It was September 18, 2017. I met with another surgeon and we decided to do a double mastectomy since it was a pretty big tumor and I had 3 other spots in my other breast. I really didn’t care about losing my breasts at that point. I just wanted the cancer out of me immediately.

I was scared but at peace. October 25, 2017, I had my breasts removed. We learned that the cancer had got into my lymph nodes, so all of the lymph nodes on my left side were also removed. They removed a few on the right side but thankfully, it didn’t spread on that side. They placed me at Stage 3 Breast Cancer. I had amazing people come and take care of me. My Step Mom, my Mother in Love, my Aunt Nanny and my Mom each came for a week. I had 3 drains and they took 5 weeks to drain. We named them Regina George, Gretchen Weiners and Karen Smith from the movie Mean Girls. Regina of course took the longest to drain. Jeremy took great care of me as well. He had to give me showers and wash my hair and everything at first. My first shower after the surgery was the first time I cried about all of this.  It was a rough recovery, but with my friends and family supporting me the whole time and holding me up in prayer, we made it through.

Then the AC Chemotherapy started. For me, at Stage 3, doing chemo was a no brainer. I just wanted all the cancer gone. I was pretty upset when they told me how many I was going to have to have. I cried for the second time about all of this. My first chemo session was the third time I cried. 16 sessions of chemo and 25 sessions of radiation all together starting in December 2017 and ending June 2018. I was pretty sick during chemo and got super burnt during radiation. I went from a scared girl to a baby chicken with no hair on my head, no eyebrows or lashes. The fourth time I cried was when I lost all of the hair on my head in the shower one morning. Jeremy and Liv shaved their heads with me in preparation of this. It was so much harder than I thought it was going to be. It’s just hair! But it was another thing cancer had taken away from me.  I had a lot of friends and family come with me to chemo. What a huge blessing it has been to get so much one on one time with some of my favorite people.

Now I’m slowly emerging to a strong warrior. A little smarter about what is truly important, a lot more thankful. Today, 1 year to the day after receiving my diagnosis, I had my post op for a full hysterectomy surgery I had on Aug 3. I was able to fiercely hug the OBGYN who found the lump and saved my life. I am forever thankful for her. I cannot believe what the human body can go through and stay alive. Not only stay alive, but come back and thrive. I am training for a half marathon I am doing with my sister Jessica in February. It’s so fun and I’m so thankful to be able to run again. I am back in Bible Study Fellowship and helping at Liv’s school now and then. I am able to work more for our business and Jeremy and I are enjoying date nights again. Slowly coming back to the real world with a fresh perspective. Things that I just checked off a list before cancer, I count as blessings. I get to pack Liv’s lunch. I get to do my family’s laundry. I get to stop and watch movies and cuddle with them. I have actually learned to rest. I shouldn’t be here, but for some reason, I am. Completely imperfectly beautifully unfinished. Aren’t we all?