Are We Having Fun Yet?

Forgive me friends and fellow survivors. It has been two weeks since my last posting. I have vowed to post weekly. My reason? I took some time to have some FUN. It has now been one full year since my final chemotherapy treatment. I celebrated in New Orleans at Jazzfest, a trip we had to cancel last year because I was just not well enough to deal with large sweaty crowds and that much jam packed fun, food and festivities. It was a great weekend! New Orleanians who faced the worst in Hurricane Katrina have come back strong. This is

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Core Values

The interesting thing about surviving breast cancer is how it affects your core values.  Suddenly your life is thrown off balance. A cancer diagnosis knocks you sideways emotionally. A masectomy changes you physically. Chemotherapy whacks your brain; for me it was like the two halves no longer fit together correctly. Your body hurts here and there, and sometimes everywhere. Your core changes physically and emotionally, and the need to strike a new balance in your life is key. The good news was that having a masectomy strengthened my core muscles physically. I no longer had the strength in my arms and chest

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Fried Eggs and Bakin’

“Body Heat” I loved this movie. Sultry Kathleen Turner seduces William Hurt on a hot, humid summer evening. Wind chimes dance in the night. Fists knot up; sheets crumple. You can almost smell the perspiration simmering off Turner and Hurts’ entwined bodies. It made me feel hot and bothered, wanton and wanting. Today, body heat has a new meaning to me. Flash forward to the reality of hot flashes. For  women in their midlife and cancer patients undergoing certain treatments at any age, hot flashes are a reality. They are nothing new- except to my every changing body. The website www.breastcancer.org, one of many handy online

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Chin Up, Chest Out, Shoulders Down

When you have a masectomy a strange thing happens to your body. It’s not just about losing your breasts. It’s about losing your alignment; physically and emotionally….and then learning to rework everything to get it all back in line. “Breasts are just chest ornaments that hang from your body, like branches,” a friend told me after my surgery. Physically this is true. A masectomy is not technically, truly invasive surgery. No internal organs are physically impacted. It just plays around with your mind and how you view your body. Your plumbing still works. Your circulation is intact. Your heart’s still pumping.

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A Day That Takes Your Breath Away

Life isn’t measured by the number of breaths you take but by the number of moments that take your breath away. I love this quote. I believe in it. I want every day to leave me breathless in a happy way. But, there are also moments that take your breath away for all the wrong reasons. And that’s when you learn to breathe deeply with intent to keep balanced and focused. The day I realized I had cancer was a day that took my breath away. Literally, I could not breathe. My hands shook. My mouth became dry.  I looked

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Defy The Challenges and Define Yourself

When you think about it, there only only a few moments that really define your life: There are the ones that give and take life: the day you are born and the day you die. There are the moments, or occasions, that define how we live our life: marriage, having children, buying a home, career choices, moving towns, pursuing a passion. And there are the days that change us and our perspective, for better or for worse. A cancer diagnosis, or any life threatening illness, falls into this category. It doesn’t happen to everyone, and you ask, “Why did this happen to me?” “How

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My boot camp for being resilient, resourceful and ready to kick cancer’s butt

This blog is about being resilient. I took a bad experience, breast cancer, and used it to toss out anything that was negative in my life to create balance.  I started the journey overweight, unhappy and stressed and ended up where I am today: in a great shape mentally and physically, looking ten years younger and feeling stronger.  I plan to share my tips with you, my readers, and invite you to share yours. This is not about just fighting cancer, although much of the content will address it and, specifically, fighting breast cancer. I want it to be about more, about reinvention and

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A Breast Cancer Survivor Bares All

This is a blog about being resilient. About facing down a life threatening illness, in my case breast cancer. The statistics are scary: One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Well, I was one of those one in eight. I was diagnosed in August 2009 at age 50 with Stage 2A breast cancer and tumors in both breasts. My prior mammogram taken just a few months earlier came through with flying colors. I found the large lump during a breast self-examination…in Italy…on a dream trip. Except I had a bad dream in the middle of it. Once I

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