Breast Cancer Chronicles: Finding the EASE Within Disease

Another Thanksgiving under my belt, and I for one am incredibly thankful that I was able to be here and be healthy enough to enjoy it. I can't say that enough, how thankful I am to be ALIVE. I cooked, I cleaned, I drank my (organic/sulfite free!) wine and ate more food than I ever should. I had a combination of family and friends (and dogs!) over and it was one of my favorite days of this entire year. For me these major holidays are a little reminder that things could have turned out very differently for me. They remind me to stay rooted in the present and enjoy the moment. That is no easy feat, especially now. I can't help but wonder about my future and if I'll be just as healthy come next Thanksgiving, or if things will have made a turn for the worst. Some days I worry about the future and I think about everything I've gone through, some days I completely forget it all. I can't help but have moments of worry; worrying that if I'm not totally on top of it, thin...

Two years ago today I went to the ER with a swollen left arm and trouble breathing. I was concerned about what was going on as my arm seemed to have gone from normal to swollen quick. Having started chemo a month before hand I was scared and worried. It turns out it was simply a blood clot in my catheter line (my port for my chemo was in my left arm and it is fairly common for a blood clot to form in the line). What I wasn't expecting was for the doctors to tell me I had a nodule that looked concerning in my left lung. I relayed this information to my oncology team and nothing was done. Not until July of 2016 when I had surgery to remove the nodule, which turned out out to be my metastatic breast cancer. So today, this day, is my only reference point to when I KNOW I was Stage IV, which means today marks the day when I know for a fact that I am beating the odds. I have connected with other women with Stage IV MBC on Facebook and I see the stories, some are beating the odds and h...