I was a teacher and my one prayer in life was to live long enough to raise my 2 boys since I had many students who lost a parent. When that worked out, and then I got diagnosed, I felt that life didn’t owe me anything. I have always been able to handle the ups and downs in life, but like someone else said, coming out the other side of this, I am not the same person anymore and no one seems to get that. They think I am okay because I got through my 5 years (stage 0, stage 1, bilateral, double mastectomy). It took 8 months to realize that it was so traumatic. I accept that people don’t mean to be unkind when they tell me about another person whose cancer is “worse than mine”. Do they think I don’t know it or that there are people truly suffering and dying? Where I have been fortunate is to have managed to stay on the AI for 5 years, but Covid helped with that. And now what? Even though my recurrence probability is low, once you are off the meds, you can’t help but think it will be back and maybe you won’t realize it since I didn’t realize it the first time. One side they couldn’t feel anything, the other side they couldn’t see anything. But now I have 2 grandkids and mostly my prayer is that my son lives long enough to raise his kids and that the other will eventually have them. I treasure my time.

Do what you can to get through. I did yoga for the side effects, particularly Sarah Beth Yoga online/ YouTube because I can do it at my own pace and for the parts that hurt the most, or just some mindfulness and as few or as many times a day as I feel. It feels better when I move, but I can’t be moving all the time! Even though the reconstruction of my breasts is beautiful, they remind me every single day. I never feel like they are not there. I also did talk therapy. For me, gulping water really helped. That’s when I knew I had forgotten to keep track of my in take.

I love watching my grandkids and I take 1 part of a day at a time since my afternoon may not be as bad as my morning,etc. But my lens is truly different now. It’s really hard not be me, plus 5 years later, I am older, so it’s hard to sort it out.

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