This morning I captured this gorgeous pink sunrise on the way to school. It felt like the sky was meant to be pink on this last day of October. 

I have so many thoughts tonight as I head to bed, as I think about my first October as a breast cancer patient. 

First, I’m so grateful to be here. I’m so grateful I had the best cancer team on my side at OSU.  Since the first day I met them, I felt special and heard and that they cared specifically for me and my circumstances. 

Seeing so much pink makes me proud that awareness has been spread and so many more women know their own body. Even 20 years ago self checks weren’t happening, and so many cases were caught later. 

Do I wish so many of these companies advertising pink products would just take out those awful ingredients in our food and personal care products? Of course..but that’s a problem for another day. Just being intentional and reading labels makes me feel like a stronger mom who is protecting the health of all my babies. 

I felt a little less alone this month. Reading others’ stories, talking to others that have walked this road have allowed me to see that a bright and full future is possible. 

And goodness gracious my people have shown up for me in ways I could have never imagined this year. My incredible mom, my sister, my dad, my brother, Michael’s family, and some dear friends and coworkers and our Berlin community. 

If you have walked any piece of this with me, thank you! Thanks for allowing me to rest, for checking in with texts and calls, for allowing me to complain without judgement, for amazing food, and for holding and rocking babies and playing with big kids. 

To my rock- Michael. You have proven “in sickness and in health” time and time again.  We are a great team and I’m so thankful for our beautiful life. I love being mama to our four kids and watching them grow and learn is the greatest joy imaginable. We are blessed.

Here we go. 

Today it has officially been one year since I was diagnosed with cancer. 

I was 31 years old and 20 weeks pregnant with twin girls. 

I didn’t have time to panic. We quickly got a second option, got appointments scheduled and started chemo all in 2 weeks. 

4 rounds of chemo. It was brutal. While working full time.

Twins delivery. Vaginal and c-section.

NICU stay. 4 lbs babies.

12 more rounds of chemo. 

Anaphylaxis shock. 

So much aching and crying and grieving for the life I wanted.

And goodness I shoved those emotions down as hard as a could. 

“I’m fine,” I’d say. Or “hanging in there.” 

But I wasn’t. My body continually tired to fail me. And I hurt everyday.  From chemo, from surgery, from endless appointments. 

Today, a year later. The pain is still fresh. 

This hard road still isn’t done. 

I’m still so broken. But so whole too. 

How? 

Jesus, my husband, my mom, my sister, our incredible family and village. 

And every time when I look around at my (4!) beautiful kids, I’m so grateful to be here, even in my brokenness. 

If you have followed my story or prayed for me, thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I never knew how much I needed encouragement on dark days. I still need it. Thank you 🩷 

This is me when I was 3 months into my cancer journey. No hair. Had chemo 10 days before I delivered the girls. Did chemo 30 days after the girls were born. I never took a picture of my bald head because it made me so incredibly sad. 

A year ago, October wasn’t Breast Cancer Awareness month for me. I maybe wore pink on a Friday at work or maybe bought something with the ribbon on it at the grocery store. 

That’s not my life anymore. Breast cancer awareness is every day for me. Every day when I look in the mirror, at my hair, my port, my in-between surgery body. Every day when I take 7 chemo pills and tons of other meds to reduce symptoms. Every 3 weeks when I meet with my oncologist and get an infusion. 

So this October, wear all the pink you want, but please remember to notice those suffering. The scars-mental and physical-don’t disappear.  Remember to do self-checks monthly to catch something early.  Early detection saves lives. Chemotherapy saves lives. Oncologists with years of experience save lives. 

I am thankful for all the pink. It’s been my favorite color my whole life, so the more the merrier 🩷🎀

Here I am, 2 months after surgery. After a lot of conversations and many hours of worrying and deliberating, I decided to go back to teaching this year. My surgery results provided a good result, but not the best result. The chemo I had from October to May shrunk my tumor, but didn’t eliminate it. This finding led to a more involved treatment plan for this fall and winter.

I’m now taking a chemo pill and doing IV immunotherapy until the end of February. I won’t lose my hair again, but that’s about the only positive side effect to both of these treatments.

I’ve spent some time feeling sorry for myself- I hope someone can relate. I find myself crying out to God, wondering “why me?”. I don’t want to be a patient anymore. I’m counting down the days until I’m done. I’ve read that many young patients feel more grief when treatment slows down, when we finally have a chance to breathe and are not in constant survival mode. That rings true for me. A twin pregnancy, working full time, and being a mom to 2 young kiddos left me with no time to process and sit in the sadness of our situation. I didn’t have time to be sad or scared. I just had to keep going. After my surgery and the quietness of the summer, I was finally left with time to think deeply about this last year- to think deeply about the trials and triumphs.

Cancer took my hair, my body, my security in living a long and healthy life, my independence, my time.

Cancer gave me 7 full months with the twins, a renewed sense of self, a desire to maximize family time, the realization that minor stresses aren’t worth the time worrying about them, new friends, and an entire community feeding us and loving us. I’m so grateful.

What I’m doing now is not easy. My body is still healing and working and momming full time takes its toll. But, Michael and mom are always there, picking up the pieces I can’t. I also find myself saying “you’ve made it this far, you can accomplish anything.”

Goodness, I would never wish cancer on anyone. But goodness, has it been a teacher of its own this year. I pray that one day families won’t face this awful diagnosis. Research has made incredible gains, and I’m optimistic new treatments are on the horizon.

Jesus, be near, to us and all those we love 🩷

I wanted to say thanks to much for everyone’s prayers leading up to my surgery. It was hard to put into words the anxiousness, yet calmness I was feeling just days before.

The surgery seems to go smoothly, but we won’t have a pathology report for a few weeks to see if I’m officially cancer free. Regardless of that outcome, I’ll still have treatment either way, just more steps if any cancer was found.

After surgery has been rough. My blood pressure was very low during my overnight in the hospital, leading to lots of dizziness. Also, since my body’s immune system has changed so much with the 12 weeks of chemo, I have somehow developed an ibuprofen allergy. It wasn’t as serious as an anaphylactic response, but my breathing instantly got labored after they gave me ibuprofen. I’m so thankful this happened at the hospital and not at home, as the doctors and nurses were able to take care of it quickly.

It’s so nice to be home, but goodness surgery isn’t for the weak. This recovery is gong to be one of the hardest things I’ve done. I thought chemo was rough (and it was!) but this recovery is worse.

I am so thankful for my support team – Michael, my mom, my sister and in-laws. My coworkers brought some food for our freezer and our church is doing another meal train for us. I certainly feel so guilty not being mobile and not being able to cook for my family. It’s so hard to rely on others, but I have this greater peace knowing God has placed the right people in our lives to carry us through this season.

Yesterday was my last chemotherapy infusion! From October 31st until now, I’ve done 16 weeks of chemo. Four of those weeks were while I was pregnant and it was considered the drug with the worst side effects -AC, aka the “red devil.” Twelve of those weeks were while I was postpartum and family had to watch our newborn babies while I was gone most of the day on Tuesdays.

A special thanks to my mom, my mother in law, Cindi, and my dad who all rotated and took turns watching the babies during my treatment days. I always had a better day to start with knowing the babies were in good hands and that I could rest when I got home.

The big kids were always with our incredible sitter, Lynn. I never worried about the big kids and I am so thankful for that. Lynn is part of our family and has provided so many prayers and so much encouragement along the way.

Michael took me to the majority of my chemo days. It sounds so silly, but we tried our best to treat the days like a “day date.” In this crazy season of life, Tuesdays were the only time we had alone together. We often picked up breakfast on the way and spent the time during treatment watching a new movie or a funny TV show. We also loved the quiet in the car to actually talk to each other. Even though each Tuesday brought pain, we tried to make the very best out of it. Most of the time he made me laugh and I enjoyed being taken care of with no big kids running around or babies needing fed.

My mom took me to a few sessions, and it was so nice to spend the day with her talking and watching shows. Heather took me to one day too, and I was so thankful for just a quiet day with my sister, which never happens anymore.

During this journey I struggle with being honest with others about the hardships, and just lying and telling people we are doing fine. Physically and emotionally chemo has been awful, but I truly tried to make the best out of treatment days, and I encourage others going through it to try to, too. The blood draws and IV sticks were terrible, as well as some pain during, but the harder part was the aftermath, which included a lot of hard side effects during the week. Cancer is so hard, so finding joy in the journey is so necessary.

Our big kids have been as understanding as possible. They know I need a lot of rest, and they’ve been the most understanding about losing my hair. I love that they aren’t scared or embarrassed. They know I’m still me, and we all laughed at my bald head, and now at the patchy regrowth.

I’m so happy to put chemo infusions behind me. I’ll still get immunotherapy infusions, but less often and with less side effects.

Next up is surgery on June 11th.

Check out the sweet sign my sister made me, and some goodies to celebrate yesterday. On Saturday, May 17th my whole family is going to take part in the Susan G. Komen race downtown and our theme is Defying Gravity, Defying Cancer, due to my love of Wicked. 🩷💚

I cannot believe the girls are 3 and 1/2 months old! We’ve moved from survival to being used to our new normal. Lily and Mia are almost 11 pounds each and fitting into 0-3 month clothes. We have gotten LOTS of sweet smiles this month. They still LOVE to be held constantly, but occasionally will play on their mat or enjoy tummy time. They are looking so identical I can barely tell them apart! Identical twins is no joke! I can’t wait until they are bigger and try to trick us about who is who. But for now, they have similar personalities and their faces are identical and telling the difference is tricky. We are so thankful for the longest stretches of sleep so far! They’ve made it some nights with 7-8 hours of consecutive sleep, and that is a sheer miracle for Michael and I. Thank you to everyone who prayed for us as we adjusted from a family of 4 to a family of 6. We needed it! What a wild transition!

The big kids are incredibly sweet with the babies. They love to hold them and talk or sing to them. They even fight over who can care for them! C is such a little mama; always making their bottles and wanting to feed and rock them. C is about to graduate preschool and H is loving being outside and digging in the dirt. We’re also (unsuccessfully) working on potty training with him.

As I have said in past posts, my mom is the ultimate baby rocker/bouncer/feeder. This period of time in our lives would be 100% more draining and 100% more stressful without her. She even changed her work hours from full time to part time to help us. What a sacrifice! Taking care of four kids 5 and under still feels so hard with just Michael and I. We are getting better, but everyday is better with my mom.

I have 2 MORE chemo infusions until I am done with this regimen- tomorrow and next Tuesday. I have been counting down the days for a long time. The side effects this time are getting progressively worse- extreme fatigue, neuropathy, nausea, vomiting, more hair loss, etc. Honestly, it still makes me so angry that I am dealing with this at 31 and with 4 kids to take care of, but each day I pray I’ll come out of this so much stronger than I was before.

My double mastectomy surgery is scheduled for June 11. Please pray with us that NO cancer will be found when they open me up. I still have many treatment steps after this surgery regardless, but if cancer is found anywhere, the treatment list will be extremely long. Also, pray for Michael and my mom as I won’t be able to lift anything (even the babies!!) for 2 weeks. We’re looking for family and friends to come love on the big kids or hold babies while I recover. This community we have is great and we feel so loved!

A big joy for us recently is that Michael and the Berlin HS Symphonic Band earned a 1 rating (superior) at the State Competition. He has worked his whole career for this, and the students have been waiting for this historic 1! We are so proud!

Despite our hardships, we are finding joy and hope in this chaotic season of life. We trust that God will keep sustaining us!