Aaah, it’s Christ­mas time! A time to enjoy deca­dent holi­day favo­ri­tes, a beau­ti­fully deco­ra­ted tree, pretty wrap­ped pac­ka­ges and spe­cial times with friends and family.

But this year, my Christ­mas is a tad dif­fe­rent than most other years, because I am spen­ding Christ­mas week reco­ve­ring from major surgery.

A few days ago, I had an Oopho­rec­tomy, which is a fancy way of saying that my ova­ries have been yan­ked out of my body through my belly button.

Yep, it’s about as much fun as it sounds!

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve crea­ted a public ser­vice announ­ce­ment to help spread breast can­cer awa­re­ness. Please watch, and for­ward this post to all the women in your life who deserve to know the truth about breast cancer.

I’ve also crea­ted a series of pro­ducts with this theme. Click here to pre­view this “Mas­ter­card Pri­ce­less Parody” pro­duct series. A por­tion of all sales go towards sup­por­ting breast can­cer research and awareness.

Wow. It’s really hard to believe that my one year anni­ver­sary has come and gone so quickly! Has it actually been one full year since this whole expe­rience began? Time flies when you’re … well, maybe it wasn’t that much fun.

But really, I am com­ple­tely ama­zed at how time flies.

Sep­tem­ber 11th of this year mar­ked the first anni­ver­sary of my mastectomy.

On that day in 2006, I went under the knife and had my left breast remo­ved. On that day, I offi­cially began my new life.

And on that day, my world, my thoughts, my fee­lings, and my prio­ri­ties, com­ple­tely and radi­cally changed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since my chemo has been offi­cially over (fore­ver) I have been des­pe­ra­tely trying to get caught up on all the wor­kload that fell behind while I was con­cen­tra­ting on get­ting bet­ter. So, I haven’t had a lot of time to write on this blog.

But I defi­ni­tely need to take some time out to show­case some of the heroes that have hel­ped me through this time in my life and talk about some peo­ple who have been ins­pi­red to turn my lemons into even more lemo­nade.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chemo is finally over. Woot!

No more boring, six-​​hour-​​long days spent in the chemo ward… no more bur­ning arms from intra­ve­nous che­mi­cals cour­sing through my veins… no more mouth sores, numb toes and red eyes cau­sed by those few remai­ning eye­lashes acci­den­tally falling into my eye socket.

And, best of all, no more fuz­zi­ness cau­sed by that all-​​too com­mon side-​​effect: chemo brain.

I’ve had eight chemo ses­sions in all. It’s been a really tough five months, not so much with the chemo itself but with its after-​​effects, ran­ging from com­plete exhaus­tion to com­plete hair­loss. My fai­led attempts to retain wha­te­ver strands of hair I have left on my body seem like a cons­tant, losing battle.

Thank­fully, we’re done. And the hair will start gro­wing back in. (Michel, my won­der­ful hus­band, seems to have noti­ced a peach-​​fuzz-​​like growth on my scalp the other day. Ah, I knew I loved him for a reason!)

Read the rest of this entry »