July 24, 2017, my life changed forever.

I was turning 40 in eleven days and thought I was going to have a bomb 40th birthday, but God had different plans in mind for me. I believe He wanted to show others, through me, who He is and what He can do when you trust in Him.

I was in Target on my lunch break when I got the call at 1:30 PM. The nurse began to make small talk and asked how long I had the lump. She then proceeded to say the left side was benign, but the right side had a 4.5 cm tumor. She also told me I had invasive ductal carcinoma and it was triple negative.

My whole world came crashing down.

I often reflect on my life and think about this assignment God has me on. From the first time I heard the words “you have cancer,” my life has moved at a fast pace and I often feel like this can’t be real. I first thought about my three children, grandson, and husband of 23 years.

See, I had just lost my dad May 23, 2017, and I hadn’t the opportunity to grieve. The weird thing about this was the fact I went home to Texas to see him and three days later he passed away. I knew at this moment, my world was crumbling and God was the only one that would get me out of this thing called CANCER.

I started chemo August 2017 and finished December 2017. I had a double mastectomy in February 2018 and chose not to do radiation. See with triple negative breast cancer, the only treatment is chemo and radiation. As I was healing after my surgery in 2018, my half brother was found dead in March 2018 and again, no chance to grieve because I was still trying to heal.

As I stated before, because I trust in God it has provided me with an undeniable strength to fight cancer face on, without fear. So I really didn’t have time to reflect on having cancer because I believe you can control cancer with you thoughts. I keep a positive mindset and that has helped me on my journey. If you wallow in your sorrows, you will remain sick.

July 2018, I had a one year celebration because I thought the cancer was gone, but once again, God had other plans. August 2018, I found out my mother had stage IV endometrial cancer and yet again, I looked to God to push me to help her with her survival.

As I was helping her, January 16, 2019, I faced my second recurrence with seventeen of twenty-two cancerous lymph nodes. Some would have probably given up, but yet I was determined to fight. And this time, I had time to think about how I wanted my treatment to go.

I would encourage you to allow others to help when they offer it because you will need it.

The good things cancer has done for my life are:

• It has given me the ability to say “no” to the things I don’t want to spend my time doing;

• It has helped me stand up for myself and not to take everything so serious because life is short;

• And it has also taught me how to understand people by listening and not always giving a response.

When you get cancer you think your life is over, but for me, my life has begun. I have cancer, cancer doesn’t have me!