We talked about it a little last night before I went to bed, but it felt different this morning when I got a sweet text from my husband.

“Good morning babe. Happy 10 year Cancerversary! I’m so thankful for you.”

I’m so thankful for him.

We celebrated big in April after I made my annual visit to my oncologist, but August 7 is always a special day. I remember it so vividly.

My mom and sister were here. We went to my doctor visit in LR. It was supposed to be just a regular visit and check up. Toward the end of the appointment, Dr. Mendelsohn looked at me and said, “there’s really no reason I can’t go ahead today and say you are in remission.”

The room started swirling and I just kinda went into a mind warp. My brain that likes to compartmentalize things to deal with them and I was not supposed to have this conversation until our next appointment so I was just so caught off guard, even though it was good news.

The sentence that followed, seemed so weird. After asking, what that means (remission still felt like some technical medical word), he responded with, “well, you just go back to life as normal.”

<insert all the bahahahahaha laughing/cry face emojis>

Umm…. there is no “normal” in life after cancer. At the time, I was still dealing with side effects to radiation on my neck. I talked like a 12 pack a day smoker (actually, I was really just down to a whisper), the sides of my throat were nearly swollen shut. My taste buds were so sensitive that sweet tea felt spicy and salt at the same time. My friends had been all in, all hands on deck for the past 5 months. We were chasing adventures that I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to experience. My life had a serious steak-in-the-ground pivot moment and I was supposed to “just go back to normal?”

That was nuts.

We left and did what Pittman girls do with good news, we found a way to celebrate with food! Since soft and saucy foods were really the only thing I could eat, we headed toward our local Olive Garden for pasta and bread sticks drowned in Alfredo sauce (sounds like a celebration, huh!).

Over the course of the next few months, I would try to process what all this meant. I had come to figure out how to manage life with cancer, but figuring out life after cancer seemed crazy. As I would learn later, I needed to take an asprin a day to keep the swelling away around my port, but really, that was all. No immediate long term side effects. No immediate life changes. No immediate decisions or repercussion decisions to make. One day I was the girl in active cancer treatment and the next I was just done.

It was so weird. I was so tired. I couldn’t even begin to process “life after cancer.” And, i was more thankful that I knew how to express. It was a lot.

So, what did I do?:

• slept – I knew the effects of radiation are building. They stack on top of each other to do their best work. So, that meant my fatigue and mouth issues were going to maintain. It was several months before I could eat much more than liquid or saucy foods.
• wrote – this space was where I came to express myself. Its the whole reason I started.
• prayed and worshiped – I was (and still am) so, so grateful for life. Dealing with a cancer diagnosis as a single, 25 year old female, nearly 300 miles from your family, you get a swift life perspective. God healed me. He could have a chosen a different path and we would have praised Him through that storm as well, but I was so thankful for healing.
• shared my story – I have continued to work on this over the last 10 years. Even this weekend, I was sharing at a conference about social media influencing and digital media marketing and I was reminded of a deep core value – Community Matters Because People Matter

I don’t know where you are today. It might be the middle of the afternoon and you are putting off laundry, dishes, or stuffing back to school backpacks. You might be wasting time at work or sitting by a pool. You may be in yoga shorts and a t-shirt, or combing your beard, or wearing a starched dress shirt and pants or a pencil skirt. Wherever I find you in this moment, let me ask you to do a couple things.

• STOP whatever you are doing. Put down everything except the device you are reading this on.
• BLINK your eyes – it will help you focus and get your attention.
• BREATHE – like inhale, exhale down to the bottom of your toes kind of deep breath.
• SMILE – it will release all kinds of endorphins that will just make you feel better.
• NAME at least 3 things you are grateful for in this moment.(and yes, that includes the cranky baby in the other room because he is a little miracle!)

Life will throw us curve balls. Lemons will come along and spoil the harvest. A new road, path or journey will be introduced. Here, we all have a chance to PIVOT.

Yes, you will want to curl in to a fetal position and rock back and forth. You are allowed to do that for a moment. These types of circumstances call for a pity party from time to time. But you better decide to serve some lemonade with umbrellas in it. STAND up. SHAKE yourself off. STEP forward and take the next step.  You never know where today’s pivot moment is moving you.

If you are new to my blog and my story, let me point you over here so you can read back through the incredible journey God took me on in 2008.