I thought after I finished treatment this blog would come to an end, but for me that is not the case. I do have good news to report: My first post-surgery mammogram was clear. This mammogram was only of my left breast; I will go back in six months for a bilateral mammogram. Of course, in between I will have follow-up appointments with my surgeon, medical oncologist, and radiation oncologist. So this is still very much a part of my life. I have had excellent care since the beginning of this process and it feels good to know the team is there to keep a check on me.

I want to make it clear to everyone that I am overjoyed to have completed treatment and to have had such wonderful news. I feel truly blessed and I am extremely grateful. But since this is a blog about the journey following my breast cancer diagnosis, I want to continue the blog as I continue this part of the journey. As I work through so many feelings, I just want to assure you that I am okay, and just trying to find my way.

So what am I feeling now? It feels like I just don’t fit in my skin anymore. Like a lizard or a snake, I feel the need to shed this skin. I really can’t put these feelings into words; it’s just an unsettledness. I have spent all of this year trying to get to this point – finished with chemo and treatment. Now what??? I know – Live. It is just figuring this part out that is causing me some difficulty.

This may sound dramatic, but today I thought, If you were in a plane crash and by some miracle you survived, would you be the same? Or would that experience affect you for the rest of your life? In my case, I have survived, but this experience has changed me in so many ways. Has it made me more fearful? I don’t think so. Has it proved to me that I am a fighter? Yes. Has it proved to me that I am loved? You better believe it.

It has also shown me that life is short and helped me begin trying to define how I want to live the rest of my life. It would be so easy to slip back into that person – that skin – I was before. Unaware, self-consumed, and living just to get by. I fear it, actually. Change is hard, but change I must.

I want to share a quote I found today because it speaks volumes to me at this point in my life:

“Choice”

“Chance”

“Change”

You Must Make A “Choice”

To Take A “Chance”

Or

Your Life Will Never “Change.”

I was talking to my dear friend Beth on the phone last week, and she mentioned how my journey has been a yearlong process that has followed almost a seasonal path. It is fall; the leaves are changing colors and the trees will soon drop their leaves. That is the point I am at also: a turning over, a renewal. Soon it will be a new calendar year and a new year for me–a year that will start me on my new path, although I have no idea what that path will be. Life is a mystery, and I just have to show up. My goal is to show up with the willingness and openness and faith to pursue this mystery.

I hope you will bear with me while I try to come to grips with all my feelings. I think this is just part of the process. I still feel a little shaky, the way you feel the first time you put on a pair of roller skates. Scared to stand up and roll into the rink, still wanting to hold onto the handrail for a while. Eventually, courage comes; you let go and walk for a few steps, then fall, but before long you’re skating forward, backward, crossing over on the curves. You still fall every now and then, but now you know you can skate, so you just jump up and off you go again.

I learned to skate by watching others and getting the courage to let go and skate. So that is what I’m doing now: watching and learning how I want to live my life. At some point, I hope others may be able to look at me and find the courage they need to take those first steps and skate.

Thanks to all of you for giving me the courage I will need for the next part of my recovery. Love you all.