WORLD CANCER DAY 2021

Today is the first time in three years that I celebrate World Cancer Day without cancer.

2019 – I was about to find out I needed biopsies after inconclusive mammogram and ultrasound

2020 – I had just been told that I has a cancer recurrence in the left breast, the extent still of which still unknown on this day a year ago.

2021 – I write this, to the best of my knowledge, cancer free.

Having cancer changed me. Having cancer a second time, changed me even more.

There were many days that I worked hard to keep my anxiety at bay trying to stop all the “what if’s” and “what are you doing” questions in my head, continually directed at God since February of 2019.

The immense amount of waiting as you are diagnosed, figure out next steps, and then go through active treatment is enough to drive someone crazy. Add on 5+ years of chronic treatment, counting down days until important milestones as years pass by with the ultimate goal to look back at year number five and be able to say truly, this cancer most likely will not be coming back.

The morning after active treatment ends whether it was a lumpectomy, double mastectomy, chemo, radiation, hormone therapy or all the above for breast cancer is the day that I feel survivors need the most support.

This is the day – for me – that I started processing what in the WORLD had just happened for the last couple of years. I was SO busy fighting each day for health, a positive attitude, to keep pushing I do not think I really processed any of it until after I fought through breast cancer twice.

Since Fall of 2020 I have given myself the time to process and really reflect on the whole journey. I think the thing that I am most struck by is that I am amazed at the ability to find courage and resiliency again and again through a cancer battle.

Not just myself – I see many friends that I have made over the past two years fighting recurrences, or other impending negative outcomes of treatments.

Then I see them, like myself, so eager to reach out and help another cancer survivor get through their tough time, and hold out their hand and pull them through. Even though simultaneously we may be living a nightmare of our own, fighting our own self-doubts and worst fears each morning when we awake.

Some other things that I would like to make sure our said on this World Cancer Day. I would like to say they are life lessons I have learned through hardships with cancer, that I can say remain part of my every day. They have all changed my life and I can say with the utmost confidence have made me feel more ME than I could have ever imagined.

1. Spend time in silence. Maybe this a devotional or bible study, meditation, or yoga. Whatever is best fit for you. Do something even if 10-15 minutes a day alone and in silence. I am able to really key into what mine is telling me are my most important needs and desires each day thanks to this time. For me personally this has been with studying the bible, writing a prayer each day, and many times a week a short yoga session focusing on breathing during the flow.

2. Do what you love. Free time should be filled with hobbies, goals, dreams, and experiences that you LOVE. We all have varying amounts of free time. But, whenever you have your second, moment, hour, day. Use it to do what YOU love. Encourage loved ones to learn more about those things, or to give you the time to continue to experience them on your own. Spend some of your other time learning more about the things your loved ones, love. Over the last year I have read more and listened to new music more than ever. I feel so full of happiness dividing my time between these things

3. Do not sell yourself short on your dreams. Stop dreaming safe. Dream big. What is the worst that can happen, you have a dream that isn’t completely fulfilled? So what. I think too many of us spend our days articulating “dreams” that are truly more of an annual goal. Something we know we are 95% confident will happen in the near future. That way we can tell people about our aspiration and not have to feel any type of embarrassment or shame if it doesn’t happen. Why do we make that up to ourselves? No one cares. Dream away. Find people who love you and support BIG long-term goals for yourself. If you are afraid to dream because you are afraid of what your loved ones will think about them – your loved one’s suck.

4. Take care of your health. You need physical, emotional, and spiritual health. If you spend 3 hours a day at a gym, sticking to a strict diet but are unable to process emotions – I think you should re-think how you spend your time. If you have always “wanted” a relationship with Jesus but have never invested the time to create one, I think you need to know Jesus is waiting for an opportunity to love you in a way you can not imagine. If you sit all day at work and eat junk food – I think you should stop being lazy and start walking a couple miles after work, and trying to figure out how to change your diet. I think if you think I am being tough on any of these things, I am, but I can tell you that the ability to work and grow in each of these areas helped me through a cancer diagnosis, twice and none of us know what tomorrow brings.

5. Don’t worry about tomorrow. I am going to close this out with some lyrics from two of my all-time favorite songs. I have always loved them, but I never really got either of them until I stared a cancer diagnosis in the face.

If Tomorrow Never Comes – Garth Brooks

So I made a promise to myself

To say each day how much she means to me

And avoid that circumstance where there's no second chance

To tell her how I feel

If tomorrow never comes

Will she know how much I loved her?

Did I try in every way to show her every day

That she's my only one?

And if my time on earth were through

And she must face the world without me

Is the love I gave her in the past gonna be enough to last?

If tomorrow never comes

Live Like You Were Dying – Tim McGraw

And he said

"Someday I hope you get the chance

To live like you were dying"

He said

"I was finally the husband

That most of the time I wasn't

And I became a friend a friend would like to have

And all of a sudden going fishin'

Wasn't such an imposition

And I went three times that year I lost my dad

I finally read the Good Book, and I

Took a good, long, hard look

At what I'd do if I could do it all again

I would love if anyone who reads this – in my honor – would you stop and imagine getting a phone call that you have a cancer diagnosis right now.

The doctor can’t tell you anything else for at least a week. You don’t know where the cancer is, how far it has spread, or how long you have to live.

For a week I challenge you to see life through the lens of either of the above songs.

Next time something doesn’t go as planned, a loved one disappoints you, the driver in the car in front of you pauses a second too long at the green light. Think through those lyrics, and as if you were living your life knowing it may all be gone soon.

We talk about cancer, we do research, and we raise funds and still it is causes SO many deaths around the World. It is so sad and as a community we will continue to FIX THIS. But, while we work on this I think everyone should also realize each cancer diagnosis paints such a significant message for every single person.

The message the second I heard “it’s breast cancer“ was super clear to me - I am not invincible. You are not either. So, why do either of us assume there is tomorrow?

Until next time, Sami