Collateral Damage

Dr. Susan Love published an interview on Medscape last week on the “collateral damage” of breast cancer treatments as reported by 3200 actual patients and not their doctors. She noted that doctors and patients often view things differently. For doctors, a living patient is the major sign of successful treatment. They don’t want to hear about treatment side effects that they can’t treat and cure, she says.

The patients and survivors are also happy to be alive but their quality of life may be severely impaired by chemo brain, depression, anxiety, fatigue, neuropathy, and hot flashes. She calls this collateral damage rather than side effects as often these symptoms are permanent, not temporary. She doesn’t mention breasts disfigured through lumpectomy and radiation, having no. breasts at all through mastectomy, or having a bad or failed reconstruction job. Presumably, these are just the regular damage to be anticipated from breast cancer treatment.

She reports that many survivors either weren’t told about these long term collateral damage effects or they were told at a time when they were so overwhelmed with other cancer information, that they were not able to absorb the message. Or if they did absorb the message, they were more concerned about staying alive than really thinking through how this collateral damage would impact their post-treatment lives.

The passages of her interview that really disturbed me the most were that chemo brain and neuropathy were forever. They don’t get better. You just get used to them and find your new normal. In other words, you stay numb and dumb forever. She could have added depression, anxiety, PTSD, and impaired body image to this list as they are often long lasting, sometimes forever.

I admit to being one of those who were told the “side effects” of chemotherapy (at least the second time around) and it was a blur of nightmare words and images ending with the ultimate side effect of death. Everything else was forgotten the moment it left the oncologist’s mouth. Thank God I took notes.

But nothing in my notes said that chemo brain and neuropathy were forever. Or that I would eventually wind up with PTSD and free falling panic attacks. Chemo brain was supposed to end with chemo. Neuropathy was supposed to eventually go away.

And no one told me just how bad a reconstruction job could be. So bad, that even oncologists and their nurses urged me to find a new plastic surgeon and get it fixed. I eventually did but after about 7 years, the implant inside the flap became encapsulated with scar tissue and is now a hard ball that juts off to the left of my body. My newest plastic surgeon is afraid to operate again for fear the whole reconstruction will collapse. So I walk around with a badly reconstructed left side and a right side that should have had the permanent implant put in it 3 years ago, dragging my feet about signing up for more surgery that will result in 2 mismatched breasts or even worse, 2 matching deformed breasts.

I had a male colleague at work whose wife had breast cancer shortly after I had my reconstruction revised. I even referred them to the plastic surgeon who performed the same back flap surgery with silicone implant that I had. I remember sitting in his office 2 years
after her surgery and listening to him complain how he could no longer make love to his wife as the surgery had left her “a hideous grotesque monster”. He was generally a very kind man and I think for a moment he forgot that I too had the same surgery. My smile froze on my face and I quietly left the room, stung to the core. It quickly put me in my place that no matter how much better the fake breast looked than before the revision, in some men’s eyes,
I would always look like a hideous grotesque monster. Yes, body image issues are forever after breast cancer.

I should note that he left his wife shortly after this conversation and is now remarried to a normal 2 breasted woman. From the Facebook groups I belong to, it seems many marriages end after a breast cancer diagnosis. So do many friendships. More collateral damage to add to the list?

I had dealt with chemo brain before way back in 1994 when it was a slang term that patients used but wasn’t really acknowledged by doctors as a true medical condition. I had short term memory loss and word problems way back then but I seemed to be back to normal 18 months post-chemo.

Ten years later, I woke up one morning with 2 fingers in my left hand permanently numb although I didn’t know it was permanent at the time. The neurologist couldn’t find anything with his shock tests so I was sent for a brain MRI.

All hell broke loose then when it showed that my brain seemed shrunken (now a recognized piece of collateral damage from chemotherapy) and was covered in white spots consistent with multiple sclerosis but in the wrong parts of the brain. I still spent 3 years at the ms clinic waiting for more symptoms or for my MRI to change. Finally, I was told it wasn’t ms and then spent the next 2 years seeing every medical expert in town for a cause for my numb fingers and unusual brain MRIs.

Someone suggested it could be a late arising radiation symptom. No one ever suggested it was from chemotherapy. I still don’t have a definitive answer but I truly believe the numbness and the weird brain MRIs are collateral damage from my first 2 cancer treatments, involving both radiation and chemotherapy. Given that the condition has remained permanent for the last 10 years, I suspect my neuropathy is forever. And no, I’ve never gotten used to it or found my “new normal” in dealing with it. It makes me angry and frustrated that these symptoms showed up years after active cancer treatment. What other long-term “gifts” does cancer have in store for me down the road?

I had chemotherapy again in 2011. Suddenly chemo brain was a real condition that oncologists talked about seriously. I don’t recall being told that it could be a permanent condition. For me, the chemo brain has in fact improved significantly but it still rears its ugly head in times of stress or fatigue (and sometimes for no discernable reason at all). It seems to have stabalized about a year ago and I always assumed it would keep getting better as time went by.

But now reading that chemo brain can be forever, I am left wondering if this is as good as it gets. Will I always be plagued with a brain and tongue that don’t connect or a brain that has much poorer short term
memory than it did before the second chemo? Some women have written in the comments to this blog that they suffer from radiation brain with the same symptoms as chemo brain. God help me if this is true, as I have been radiated twice along with my 2 bouts of chemotherapy. My brain must be the size of a peanut by now, covered with even more white spots and less grey matter.

It is clear that research money has to go into ways of dealing with the collateral damage breast cancer treatments leave behind as well as trying to prevent the damage from happening in the first place. We don’t need more awareness of breast cancer. Everyone is aware. We don’t need to use race money to fund more races. We need to find ways to help with these survivorship issues. And even more importantly, we need research money for a cure for metastic breast cancer, the only breast cancer that actually kills.

Sharon Greene March 10, 2015

Posted from WordPress for Android

Do You Have Chemo Brain?

It has taken some time, but now science and medicine acknowledge that chemo brain is a real side effect of chemotherapy. It can last for a few months or can linger on for years. 
   
Chemo brain is characterized by mental confusion, inability to multi-task, memory problems, the inability to concentrate, and vocabulary problems – either the inability to think of a common word or the inability to say the word aloud and say a different word or words instead.

Chemo brain can be funny at times (particularly to one’s relatives and children) but mostly it is a frustrating and sometimes frightening state of affairs.  I have had chemotherapy twice and have gone through this experience both times. Even 3 years past the second chemo, it still strikes me when I am overly tired or stressed.

I composed a list of chemo brain incidents I personally experienced. If you can relate to these, you have probably experienced chemo brain too!

1. You lose your purse, cell phone and
     keys on a regular basis. You’ve been
     known to “misplace” your children
     from time to time but they always
     come back.

2.  You lose your ability to think of
      everyday words. To compensate,
      you speak in awkward descriptive
      sentences like, “can you pass me
      a…a…little round dead cow?” at the
      neighborhood barbecue when you
      want a hamburger.

3.   Your brain finally comes up with
       right word but your mouth
       has a mind of its own with random
       semi-related words coming out at
       unexpected times. Now that you
       have your burger, your brain thinks
       bun but your mouth asks for toast
       to put on your hamburger.
        
   4. You get used to your children
        thinking you are being funny
        while your friends, neighbors, and
        fellow co-workers think you are
        drunk, crazy, or suffering early
        stage dementia whenever you
        open your mouth to speak.

      5. It’s a good day at work when the
           only thing mismatched is your
           socks. Although your employer
           complains, at least they don’t
           know about the time you drove
           halfway to work in your pajamas
           before realizing you weren’t
           appropriately dressed.

       6.  You drive home from work and
             realize you have no memory of
             the ride home.
             

       7.  You find yourself at the
             grocery store or mall with no
             idea why you are there or what
             you came to buy.

 .       8.  You can listen to the same old
               gossip time and again as you                           have no memory of hearing
               the story the first time round.

          9.  You are cooking and the
                phone rings. You forget about
                making dinner until the
                smoke detector reminds you.

           10.  You decide to tackle chemo
                   brain head-on by making to-
                   do lists and putting them in
                   safe places. You
                   immediately forget where
                   those safe places are.

      
These are my personal top ten hits of chemo brain. I’m sure there are many more, but frankly I have forgotten them. Please let me know I’m not alone in my daze and confusion. I’d love to hear the funny and not so funny things chemo brain did to you in the comments below.    

            

       

Posted from WordPress for Android

Cancer Changes Everything

I saw a meme the other day that said something like “cancer can take away my body parts but it can’t touch my mind, my heart, or my soul.” Lovely words, heroic even, if you don’t think about them too closely.  I thought about them very closely and found I disagreed strongly with the message.
One way to interpret this meme is the superficial positive message of, “I am more than my disease. I am still a real person under the scars and the bald head and the chemo sickness. I am still me in my mind, heart, and soul”.

On that level, I can accept the meme’s message. But when I look at the words as they are written, not searching for a positive hidden meaning, I find myself in total disagreement with them.

I don’t think we can compartmentalize our lives that easily. The physical changes impact the mind, the emotions, and the spirit. It is not just the physical changes that lead to mental and emotional distress. The very process of being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease plays havoc with our minds, emotions, and our spirits. We are more than the sum of our physical parts. Our bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits are all intertwined to make up the whole package of our being.  Our bodies don’t exist in some separate dimension away from the mental and emotional parts of our being.  I do not believe that we come out of the other side of a cancer experience the same person we were when we went in.

Dealing first with the physical changes that cancer brings upon us, they have an enormous impact on the mind, the heart (emotions), and the soul (the very core of our being and our belief system). Breast cancer treatment often strips us of our breast(s), our hair, our fertility, and sometimes our ovaries or even our whole reproductive system. Often times treatment pushes a woman into at least temporary menopause. For others, the menopause is early and is permanent. No matter what kind of treatment is involved, there is physical pain and sickness from surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

Our whole body image can change dramatically in only a few months time. Suddenly, all the physical attributes of what makes us female are gone. This plays havoc on our self-esteem and self-confidence. Yes breasts can be reconstructed, hair will grow back, fertility may be regained if we are very young and lucky or if we had the foresight to freeze eggs or embryos in advance of chemotherapy or gynecological surgery.

But breast reconstruction often involves multiple surgeries and for some, the end result is disappointing at best. And a reconstructed breast no longer has any feeling in it, no matter how cosmetically wonderful it may look.

Assisted reproduction techniques are not always successful. Chemotherapy can leave behind a permanent legacy of neuropathy (numbness in the hands and feet), hormonal drugs can lead to chronic joint pains, and surgical or chemically induced menopause symptoms can be more severe than natural menopause and are unlikely to be treated with hormonal supplements as these may reignite cancer.

With all these physical “side-effects” of cancer treatment, is it any wonder that many women feel distressed or depressed or highly anxious? When you look in the mirror and don’t even recognize the person you were 6 months earlier, it is bound to affect you mentally and emotionally. If you are in chronic pain and are suffering hot flashes at 30, it tends to change your outlook on life.

As far as cancer not being able to touch your mind,  I have one word for that. Chemobrain. It is real, it affects your memory, your concentration, and your ability to communicate effectively. It can feel as though you have had a mini-stroke as you dig through the filing cabinets of your mind to find that elusive everyday word you have used a million times before. Other times the right word is in your brain but a totally random word comes out of your mouth as if your brain and mouth were no longer connected. Then there is the disconcerting habit of losing things – your purse, your keys, your phone – only to find them right in front of you the whole time. So yes, cancer treatment can take away the mind for many of us, at least temporarily.

As far as the heart or the emotions, just the very diagnosis of having a disease that can potentially kill you tends to strike fear and panic into your heart. You wait endlessly for pathology reports and the results of various scans to see if the cancer has spread. You worry about loved ones and how they will cope during treatment, or in the worst case scenario death, particularly if they are young children or aged parents that you normally care for.

Even when the cancer is caught at an early stage and the prognosis is good, most women are still highly anxious about a recurrence or a future diagnosis showing the cancer has spread. Once you have had cancer, you feel your body has betrayed you once and can do so again. Your sense of safety in the world has been irrevocably affected.  You have come face to face with your own mortality, realizing you just might not live to a ripe old age. These factors can bring on depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and in some cases, PTSD. So yes, cancer can and usually does attack the heart (emotions) as well as the body.

Finally, your soul or your very essence of being can be adversely affected as your perspective on life changes. Some of the changes may be for the good in that you start to appreciate the people and things around you more as you feel you came close to losing them. But it can also make you more wary of planning for the future, knowing that cancer could re-enter your life at any time.

You suddenly become aware that many women are dying of this disease, women your age and younger, as well as women whose cancers were also detected early and were given an excellent prognosis.  The world of cancer seems very random, more like a roll of the dice than like the orderly world of the cancer media which says early detection will keep you safe. You may search for ways to put yourself in control of your cancer by completely changing your diet and lifestyle only to hear about organic vegans who ran triathlons and died of cancer anyway. When you realize that the difference between living and dying of this disease seems to be more a matter of luck than anything else, your previously optimistic view of an orderly controlled world is essentially gone for good.

Perhaps I am presenting an overly pessimistic view due to my personal history of having breast cancer 4 times. It is a rarity in the breast cancer world to have cancer strike 4 times and not spread beyond the breast. I am grateful that I have been spared from Stage 4 cancer multiple times, particularly as I also have a BRCA1 mutation to contend with.

But even “good” recurrences like mine come with a huge emotional and spiritual price tag attached. I am constantly looking over my shoulder waiting for cancer to strike again. It is impossible for me to believe that this time I have “beaten” cancer as it keeps coming back for another round. Even if my breast cancer days are over, the BRCA1 mutation means I am susceptible to other forms of cancer that may be waiting in the wings to strike when I least expect it.

I don’t blame cancer for all the problems in my life. But I would be lying if I said that cancer didn’t have a negative impact on all areas of my life. I don’t believe cancer only took physical body parts away from me. It took much more of a toll on my emotions and spirit that I tried my best to cover up for many years. I am still happy with my life but I miss the wide eyed optimist I used to be. I don’t think she is ever coming back again and that makes my mind, heart, and spirit sad.

Posted from WordPress for Android

Transracial Adoption: When the Adorable Babies Become Teens

This is a continuation of my earlier story “Adopting After Cancer: A Love Story”. What happens when those cute black babies become black teenagers?

Survivors Blog Here

When we first adopted our son as a newborn, complete strangers would come up to us to say he was the cutest baby they had ever seen. Many also choose, without asking permission, to ruffle and feel his hair. This latest throughout his toddlerhood and stopped abruptly when he was in the early school grades.

My daughter came along 16 months after my son, and she also got a lot of attention for her cuteness and later her burgeoning beauty. People often mistook them for twins even though my son was 3 times the size of my daughter due to the difference in age. I sold children’s designer clothes on EBay for a time and my daughter was often my model. People would write to me about my adorable model although they wouldn’t necessarily purchase the clothes.

Children grow up and although I think they are both exceptionally good looking…

View original post 304 more words

Adopting After Cancer: A Love Story

I am very excited to be guest blogging at Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer today for their cancer and Infertility week series.

Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer

Sharon, Carter, and Kayla Greene‏

I was first diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at age 29, way back in 1988. The protocol at that time was to tell women to wait 5 years before getting pregnant or, as my breast surgeon so crudely put it, “Baby might not have a Mama”. Nothing like the subtle approach to shut down any further questions on that subject!

5 years passed, and I went to my “cure” date mammogram confident that all was well. It wasn’t. The cancer had returned to the same breast and as I had radiation the first time, the only option left was a mastectomy and 9 months of chemotherapy.
I again heard the “Baby and Mama” speech. I was told that chemo could possibly put me permanently into early menopause but as I was still only 34, there was a good chance the menopause symptoms would only…

View original post 1,552 more words

Parenting With Breast Cancer

When you are a parent, you want to protect your children from all the bad things in life as you love them so fiercely. You feel like this lioness with her cub, trying to shelter them from all impending harm. But when you are diagnosed with cancer, you are the one that sends your children’s world into a chaotic tailspin. Between the shock of diagnosis, the demands of treatment, and the uncertainty of what the future holds for you and your family, your children can’t help but be threatened by this disease that has invaded their lives.

Although I have had breast cancer 4 times, I only had children during the last bout in 2011. At that time, they were 9 and 11, old enough to understand what was going on but young enough that they still needed a parent who could be there for them 24/7. As a single mother with no other family for support, I found the competing demands of parenthood vs the painful realities of illness very overwhelming.

My children knew since a very young age that I had cancer 3 times way back before they were born. They were perversely proud of this fact about me as I guess it made them think I was Wonder Woman, able to beat cancer into submission at a single bound.

When after being cancer free for 16 years I learned it was back, I panicked about how I would explain this to my son and daughter. I had no idea how we would manage as in the past there was always someone around to take care of me. This time I was their caretaker and no one was volunteering to look after me (or them).

The children knew something was wrong before I was ready to have the cancer discussion. There were too many doctor’s appointments, too many whispered phone calls, and a few too many tears shed watching children’s television shows that weren’t particularly sad or sentimental. When your Mom bursts into tears over Sponge Bob’s latest escapade, the children fear the worst is about to happen. When they asked if they had done something to make Mommy so sad all the time, I knew I had to tell them the truth.
 
 

 

 
I did a little research on how to talk to your school age children about a cancer diagnosis. The articles mainly touch on three points which have been called the 3 “c” words. The first point is to call it cancer, not a generic sickness or a boo boo. The reasoning is that if they have a name and explanation of what your condition is, they will be less likely to worry about other more horrendous illnesses (maybe Ebola?) you may have. It helps as well for them to associate a specific term for the disease as they may become overly fearful of the word, “sick” as it applies to them. If they associate the word “sick” with Mommy having major surgery and going bald they may panic when someone calls them sick when they complain of a tummy ache or a sore throat. They may think their sickness may lead to the same extreme consequences that happened to Mommy. So instead of turning your children into hypochondriacs by using the word “sickness”, use the word “cancer” so they can differentiate between the two conditions.

This was the easy part for me. My children knew what cancer was because of my past history. On the other hand, they had never lived through it before and needed some explanations of the possible treatments that might be involved and the consequences of those.

My 11 year old son became fixated on the fact that I would lose my hair and that seemingly was his greatest concern throughout my treatment. Talking to him about my cancer now 4 years later, he admits he was secretly worried sick I would die and leave him. But it was safer for him to worry outwardly about my baldness, wanting me to wear a wig, even to sleep. My little caps and turbans were disturbing to him (let alone my bald head) even in the privacy of our own home.

My 9 year old daughter took my baldness and various head coverings in stride. She loved coming with me to the Cancer Clinic where free donated wigs and head coverings were there to try on and take home. She became my fashion co-ordinator, ensuring my hat matched my outfit.

She showed her discomfort about my cancer in other ways. For example, she would often feign sickness on my chemo days or at times I had oncology appointments. She knew I considered her too young to leave at home alone so she would often accompany me to these appointments. This was her way of exerting control of the situation. She seemed to think that if I went to a hospital alone, they would keep me and I would never return home.

Even though I strongly suspected her vague symptoms of illness were fake, it was clear that her distress levels were real. Taking her along to these appointments reduced her anxiety while insisting she attend school led to huge emotional meltdowns every time. It seemed the lesser of the two evils at the time although in hindsight, it would have been better for her education if I had a back-up person to send her to on those appointment days. My guess is that she would have recovered from her symptoms quickly and attended school to be with her friends. While neither child ever actively worried aloud in my presence that they were afraid I was going to die, 4 years later it is clear that was underlying their behaviour all along.

The second “c” word recommended to be included in any discussion of cancer with children is the word “contagious”. It is important that children know they will not catch cancer from you in the same way they could catch a cold. This encourages continued close contact like hugs and kisses, without the child worrying they too will become sick. My children seemed to readily understand this concept and were not afraid of physical contact with me.

The only times physical contact became a challenge were after the mastectomy and partial reconstruction, when I returned home sore with 3 drains hanging down. They had to be reminded that Mommy loved them but couldn’t tolerate a big bear hug quite yet. The other times physical contact became an issue were during chemo when they had a cold or flu and they were the contagious ones. They had to be reminded that my immune system was weak and if I caught their bug, I could get very sick. They seemed to accept that without question. I was the one who suffered guilt from not being able to care for them as a mother should when some bug got them down.

The third “c” word is “causation” in that Mommy’s cancer was not caused by anything her children did. The experts say that children under 13 are still in a developmental stage where they may blame themselves when something bad happens in the family. They may think that Mommy got cancer because I always nag her for new toys or because I don’t clean my room when she tells me to. I did reassure my children that they did not cause my cancer in any way. They both looked at me blankly as if the thought had never crossed their minds. That may be explainable by their knowledge that I had breast cancer 3 times before they were born. If they didn’t cause the first 3, why on earth would they think they caused the fourth cancer?

To help my children better understand my illness and their feelings about it, I brought home every age appropriate, “when your parent has cancer” book the Cancer Clinic had available. Although both enjoy reading, neither child showed any interest in the books even when I said we could look at them together. Maybe they thought we have to live with this stuff everyday, why would we want to read about it too?

Some cancer centers have programs specifically for children with parents living with cancer. We attended a half day program which the kids enjoyed very much as they saw others their own age living with a parent like myself. My daughter and I attended a Look Good, Feel Good program where we got to play around with and take home various cosmetics and wigs. My daughter decided I needed a purple wig to liven up my appearance so I would sometimes wear it at home for fun. This drove my son crazy as while he wanted me in a wig at all times, I was only supposed to wear wigs that were of the same color and style as my natural hair.

Trying to be a parent with cancer is challenging at best, although some of the sweetest memories of my life come from that period. Sometimes a simple caring gesture or word from one of my children would be enough to lift my mood for days on end. We did still manage to have birthday parties and a few fun outings during this year. Even at my sickest, when I was hospitalized for 4 days a week after my first chemo, the children got to spend one night with me in a private hospital room, a fun first for both of them.

Unfortunately, between the chemo brain and the PTSD, much of the year of Cancer 4 is a hazy blur to me. My children remember it better than I do. If I had to relive that experience again, I would seek out more support for both myself and the children. I also would have looked into one of the free camps for cancer families as we all needed a vacation after the previous year. They are just starting up in Canada but there are several established places in the US we might have qualified for had I known about them at the time.

While parenting with cancer can be tough going at times, especially for a single parent, it is doable as long as you can let go of your expectations of what perfect family life is supposed to look like. Sometimes a picnic on the floor altogether as a family can be more fun and memorable than a standard dinner at 5:00 gathered around the kitchen table. It’s your cancer, your family, and your lives together that determine how you best muddle through this difficult family time.

Sharon Greene January 3, 2015

Making Themes Not Resolutions For 2015

                                                                    

Having made and promptly broken every resolution made for New Years in the  past, I’m trying something different this year. I have decided to pick 2 keywords as my themes for the year which will hopefully guide my actions in the 12 months ahead.

The words I have chosen for 2015 are “create” and “giving”.  I want to build up and not tear down. I would like to make something new, whether it is a new blog post, an article written out of my comfort zone, an e-book, or building a sense of community in my online and virtual worlds. I want to share my experiences more transparently and honestly in the hopes that even one reader will say to herself, “hey, I’m not alone feeling this way”. As I wrote in an earlier post, The Winning Ticket, I want to give back to my community, not keep taking from it. In terms of this blog, I want to create a safe place where we can exchange our stories freely, offer much needed emotional support to each other, and not worry if our stories do not resemble the”official” one of happy smiling pink-suited survivors.

As far as giving back or paying it forward, I would like to be even more candid about sharing my experiences with having triple negative breast cancer 4 Times. While I am not a doctor and can’t offer medical advice, I have almost 27 years of personal experience with this disease. I have gained a certain amount of knowledge about breast cancer and recurrences/new primaries as well as living with a BRCA1 positive gene during this time.

There was a recent post called Breast Cancer: It Is Going To Be A Bumpy Ride where I danced around the topic of whether or not I personally suffered from PTSD.  Some readers figured it out while others didn’t. Yes, I have had depression, anxiety, panic attacks and flashbacks for years but was not properly diagnosed with PTSD until 6 weeks ago. Since then, a new medication has been added to my antidepressant and anti-anxiety cocktail and I am feeling lighter than I have in years. So why did I not just come out and say that in the post? Was I so afraid of labels about my mental health that I felt a need to detach myself from this particular diagnosis?  If nothing else, I would like to turn my negative experiences into something positive that others can relate to and realize they are not alone. I have had the symptoms for PTSD for many years and now with the official diagnosis, it is finally being appropriately treated. I feel better! And that is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of for any cancer survivor.

I hope my themes work better than my resolutions ever did. What about you?  Are you making New Year’s resolutions or goals or themes? Why or why not? If you are comfortable doing so, please share these or any other concerns in the comments.

Have a Happy healthy joyous 2015!

                                                                                                                                                                                                            Together we can accomplish anything!
                                                           
   

            

Posted from WordPress for Android

Sharon Greene December 31, 2014

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here's an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Wishing You All A Very Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all the Cancer survivors and the ones that love them and a special prayer for all our fallen sisters and their families!

Posted from WordPress for Android

The Winning Ticket

This is my first guest post ever and I am very excited to be here at A Holistic Journey! This is a departure from my usual subject matter, about being a 4 time breast cancer survivor. In the spirit of Christmas, I bring you the true story of a wonderful colleague who turned out to be my Guardian Angel in disguise at a time when I needed her the most.