Running Through Breast Cancer - 1 year later

First chemo infusion
When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, the word that resonated with me was RESOLUTE.  It felt so fateful, that diagnosis.  This was the beginning of the end.  As much as my mind was telling me I was being dramatic, I also couldn't completely squelch the fearful part of my brain that envisioned saying goodbye to my husband and kids, and wondering what their life would be like without me. It was only breast cancer, and I'd caught it early, but "only breast cancer" isn't really a thing.  It's freaking BREAST CANCER and people die of that!  I'd never had a disease that had the capacity to kill me. This one had been cut out and come back in less than two years, so the fight was on and I was taking the deep dive into full surgeries and chemotherapy.  Until now, my only risk for death had been by freak accident or my own stupidity.

January - 2nd chemo & hair is gone
Fast forward through a year and my current mindset is PERSPECTIVE.  I'm in a different place emotionally, mentally and physically.  In the moment, chemotherapy felt horrible.  My body was very literally dying.  Cells were being poisoned and I felt wiped out.  Each round of chemo took a little longer to bounce back from physically.  My hair fell out, my skin looked sickly and I felt so vulnerable because I had no immune system.  It was the end of the world as I knew it.

April - expanders done
But PERSPECTIVE.  Because I can look back now and it seems like I sailed through it.  I'm looking over my running log for the past 12 months and see that I took 6 weeks off from running after my mastectomy.  My first run back was a 5k trail race called Dirty Secret.  I was thumbing my nose at cancer and all its nasty treatments that were in front of me.  Then, despite two chemo treatments in January 2018, I also clocked in 18 miles of running/walking that month.  That was the RESOLUTE part - that mantra was a good one and it was working.  In February, I managed 16 and a half miles and in March 15 miles.  Chemotherapy slowly wore me down physically, but my spirit clung to being RESOLUTE.  I would not roll into a ball and give in to the disease or to the toll treatment took.

July - done with all treatments!
I've had a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction surgeries.   I am a new person, quite literally.  I have body parts I wasn't born with to get used to.  And for that, I need PERSPECTIVE because it all feels a little weird.  I look in the mirror and my hair, a full year later, is still pretty short and unruly. It's wild and crazy.  At first, I had fun with it and tinted it different colors.  Now it needs to be blown out and straightened or it looks like I've been attacked by monkeys.  I've never had short hair, so the person looking back at me looks different than the image in my head.

For anyone who is just diagnosed, or maybe is deciding on treatment or is feeling depleted from ongoing treatment, do not let the worries overtake your ability to be RESOLUTE.  Find that thing that will inspire you, that thing that feels like fighting back, and go do it.  It can be anything.  The point is that it empowers you because you are doing something.  The chemo is doing its work, the doctors are following their protocols, but you are not out of the equation needed for this solution.  What will you do to actively fight?  It might be movement, like mine was.  It might be getting up everyday and taking a shower, or eating salad for lunch every day.  Whatever you can do that speaks to you, that reminds you that you are part of this fight, do it and be RESOLUTE.
Hair takes a long time to grow!
Be patient!

Once you are through to the end and you rise out of the ashes of your chemically burned out body, you will have a renewed PERSPECTIVE.

From where I sit today, I am grateful.  I made it through the most difficult time of my life.  Gratitude is the only proper response.  Gratitude and ambition.  If my body can get through having parts carved off, if my body can get through being chemically poisoned, then think of all the amazing things I can do with this new cancer-free healthy body!

You will be cancer free.  Remain RESOLUTE.  Find your fighting spirit and step into the fight.

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