Six Years Later

I've been writing letters today. And every time I wrote the date (2.20.19), my heart went back . . . back six years to the day when I first heard the words, "It's cancer."

I wrote in my journal on that date:

Well, I have breast cancer. There's just no good way to put it. Not the result we were expecting or hoping for. Even the doctors are surprised: a cancerous cyst. So now I face scans, surgery, chemo, radiation, and the pill. Not a pretty picture. Hard to tell the kids; hard to see them and Greg cry. I'm numb, scared, a little angry. But we'll trust God ~ and fight this hard.

I would not know until after the surgery that my cancer was triple-negative, not one of the hormonal ones that can be battled with "the pill" Tamoxifen. It would be even later before I learned that triple-negative cancer can be one of the more aggressive, harder-to-beat forms of breast cancer. 

But by God's grace, I'm still here! He's not finished with me yet!

I've spent today not only writing letters, but also caring for my husband and daughter who are battling the flu. It's been a tough day, trying to juggle "nursing duties" with all the other things that I wanted to get done. But as we reminisced tonight about six years ago, I felt incredibly blessed and thankful that I'm here to care for my family. Somehow, remembering that I might not have been makes the task just a little sweeter. 

Life, even on the hard days, is a gift!