Pamper Your Kitchen for a GREAT Cause!!!

I have only a short time left to get orders in!!!! Please check out my page and get some great stuff for your home, host your own party, or even sign up to sell this wonderful stuff yourself!!!! AND the added bonus is that you help out an AMAZING CAUSE just by purchasing the stuff you already love!!!! You can share this with anyone and everyone!!!!! Please help me reach my goal for the Susan G Komen 3-day Faster by going to the link below and purchasing your favorite items!!! I would recommend the Knives and the Stoneware!!! I LOVE both of those types of items!!!!! 
Purchase $60.00 or more in product you get a FREE item!!!!  The person with the HIGHEST purchase price will also receive a gift from me!!!  

Thank you!!!!!!

http://www.pamperedchef.biz/luvmykitchen?page=host-search-results&showId=4244370

Statistics... Hmmm, I think I will pass and make my own path!!!

Statistically speaking, the type of breast cancer that I was diagnosed with was found first in 2000, and makes up for less than 0.1% of ALL breast cancers diagnosed!! Statistically speaking, most doctors have never, first hand, seen this type of cancer! Statistically speaking, most doctors would not know what their first step in treatment would be because of the lack of information on this type of Cancer. Statistically speaking, the guess at the 5 year reoccurrence rate for my type of breast cancer is 67%, after treatment. WELL, Statistically speaking can kiss my ass!!!

I am basing my treatment off of, who the F cares that there is not enough evidence to prove this or that or the other! Lets just treat it and get as much of it out as possible! And that is what my doctors did! None of them have ever seen it first hand, and none of them have certainly never treated it, so we did the most aggressive form of surgery possible, because my life is more important that Statistics! We did an aggressive treatment of Chemotherapy following, not knowing if it was truly needed but still aired on the side of caution, because again my life more important that statistics! Every part of my treatment has been a guess from day one to ensure that my life stays more important than the statistics!

My mom has ALWAYS told me I am not normal, getting two different types of cancer before the age of 28, and betting one type twice, and then diagnosed with the rarest form of breast cancer, I truly believe her! lol She always meant it in a loving and kind way, and I have always taken it that way! NOW, my doctors are 100% convinced of this as well! lol It is a running joke that when I come in I am "Walking Murphy's Law"! SO as for statistics they can kiss it, because I will make my own statistic one way or the other! And so far, I am beating it , and making the statistics quiver!

I hope that someday, my weird and not normal journey will help someone else tell the statistics to kiss it! A lot of people are unaware that no matter what type of cancer you have, if it is the rarest or the most diagnosed, each case is still very unique! Each person is unique so even if similar people get the exact same type of cancer, in the exact same spot, with the exact same staging, they could still have different outcomes and treatments! So Statistics are just statistics and NO ONE needs to read into them!

Statistics can kiss it!!! I on the other hand have more important kisses!!!!

BOOBS!!! (.)(.) ~ ( . ) ( . ) ~ ( . ) ( . ) ~ ( . )( . ) All different kinds!

Yep, Boobs!! Who would have thought that they could be SO DAMN COMPLICATED?! Yep! Complicated! When we are growing up, girls can't wait to get them! Boy's can't wait to see them! They are one of the first things boys notice about a girl. They are what makes girls feel like a "woman" when they have to purchase their first bra!! They can get a girl drinks, they can be called man boobs or pecs for a man, which can also get them drinks!

When I found out that my breasts, which I happened to like, were trying to kill me, I immediately, without hesitation, agreed to have them removed! It was for the best, it would help save my life and allow me to see my children continue to grow! It was a no brainer. But why does something that affects everyone's life in some way shape or form, have to be so deadly?! Whelp, just another piece to the large puzzle our lives make! I got over having a part of me hacked off like it was killing me...oh wait....

So anyway, got over it, and had expanders put in to help the skin stretch back out to allow room for implants. Seems simple enough, they take the expanders out, and replace them with implants! NOPE! I think it took an hour (today) and three months to decide what would look more "normal" for me! There are SO many different decisions when it comes to implants!! Who would have thought!? There are so many different types of implants, Saline, silicone, Silicone gel, and Silicone semi-solid! So you first get to decide what type of implant you want! After that is decided then you have to decide how "projected" you want them to be! THEN you get measured and they tell you how wide or narrow the implants can be, so you get to decide that, if you want your breast to be narrower, or wider! THEN you get to decide how much volume you get in them! (some of these are limited depending on skin, trauma, and other factors) AND, after all of that is said and done, you still are not sure the right decision is getting made! lol So instead of deciding what I like and what I want, I narrowed it down and told the doctor, put in whatever makes me look as close to what I was and as natural as I was as possible and just be done with it.

Psh... "Ain't nobody got time for that!"


We like them big, we like them small, we like them perky and saggy, we like them all... SO when you wake up on the first of the month, Men or women, young or old, big or small, grab a hold and feel them all!!!

Have you performed your self check this month??

One Person, one year, one amazing transformation!

When I heard the words "one person, one year, one amazing transformation", I thought, yep that is exactly right!! No, I was not on an extreme weight loss program, but I had the year that certainly changed me! I will have had (in one year) 24 surgeries, chemotherapy, Sepsis, rejection of an expander, loss of hair, loss of nails, loss of family and friends, and much & much & more; and I gained all the support, love and care that anyone could ever want! Better yet, I have learned awareness, patience, forgiveness, and a whole new lease on life! Of what I have lost over the last year... I have gained so much more.... I am a better person!!!

Before & After 

<-Bilateral Mastectomy

^ Expander Replacement

Before partial Hysterectomy
       ->







^ Before Bilateral Mastectomy

 Central Line again^

 During sepsis ^--------------------^

All the Different placements for an IV!!!

After my lumpectomy (below) I looked dead! :/

^ Aftermath of the Hysterectomy

<- Port






Chemo ->

After Bilateral Mastectomy (Below)

<-Heart Check

^ After the removal of the final ovary ("Forgotten" Ovary)

When Life gives you Lemons.... You squeeze like hell until you get something beautiful!!

We all know at some point in our lives, life with shit on us with lemons.... we are just not sure when, how big the lemons will be and how sour or sweet they will be! Someone out there is driving their car down the road and they will end up rear ending someone... not injuring themselves or any one else, but of course, when it rains it pours. So that person you just saw rear end someone else, and you think, "Man they were lucky"... You should also realize that maybe just maybe this was just the end to a bad string of bad days! So the next time you see someone rear end someone else, maybe you should stop, and check on both parties! Who knows, maybe that man that just rear ended that lady, just lost his wife! YOU could be the change in their whole day! You could be the one that helps them make since of what just happened, you could be their saving grace!

If God has blessed you with wealth, and you are unhappy, maybe it is because you are lonely and all alone, or because you are bored, or because you have so much money and you don't know what to do with it, and aren't seeing anything good come out of it! SO MAYBE, you can share your wealth, go to a diner, sit down, order a soda and leave a ginormous tip for the overly worked, tired, sore and pregnant mother that is waiting on you. Or go to a fast food drive-thru and pay for the person behind you, just because! Feel like shopping, but you know you already have too much stuff and you really don't need anymore? Go grocery shopping and drop it off at a local Daycare center! Matter of fact, you don't have to be rich or wealthy, you just have to open your eyes to the world around you and realize that we are all holding a bag of giant sour lemons, why don't you got take some lemons from someone and make their load a lot or a little lighter? God knows he will reward you in return and take your lemons from you!

The something beautiful that can come out of squeezing your lemons, is a smile on someone else's face! The pure joy they get just from a simple act that you and I and everyone is capable and able to do! So why is it that we do not do this on a daily basis?? Because the world has gotten too selfish, everyone worries about their own problems so much that they refuse to open their eyes to someone that has it worse than you! There is someone out there that their day will forever be changed if you just smiled, shared, or hugged! Have you opened your eyes today???

You are never guaranteed tomorrow, 

so today open your heart, and let it sing today!!

"I am not my hair!"

Such a powerful and truthful statement! I am NOT my hair! There is a wonderful company in Texas that has created a Beautiful video highlighting Breast Cancer Survivors and fighters in a new video titled "I am not my hair".... It is a video that I was lucky enough to be part of, a very small part, but a wonderful message is shared and felt throughout! I have attached the link, enjoy and please feel free to share!! It is inspirational and will put perspective in your life. :)

I am Not my hair!!

PRMA - Plastic Surgery ~ Rebuilding Lives After Breast Cancer
Is located in Texas and is a wonderful facility that helps women make the best decision for themselves in terms of reconstruction and their bodies after Breast Cancer has devastated them.
They specialize in advanced breast reconstruction ~ DIEP, SIEA, GAP & TUG flap Procsedures, Fat Grafting, and Alloderm One-Step. Check them out if you are in the area!!

There contact information:

9635 Huebner Road
San Antonio, Texas 78240
Phone:  (800) 692-5565
Email:   patientadvocate@prmaplasticsurgery.com

http://PRMA-enhance.com http://Breast-Cancer-Reconstruction.blog... http://www.youtube.com/PRMAplasticsurgery http://twitter.com/mchrysopoulo http://twitter.com/DiepFlapBreast

"I am NOT my Hair! I am Brave, I am Bold, I am Beautiful, and I am a survivor!!

Remission!!! Yes, it is true, it just sunk in!

So today marks five months of being in Remission from Breast Cancer!!!! I can not get over it, it just seems like yesterday that my whole world was turned upside down!! They say the first step is three months, second is six months, third is a year! I have gotten through the first one and the second is right around the corner! I feel confidant that they will be able to take care of anything if it were to recur within the next few months!! A little nerve racking knowing that I have scans coming up, and that the "hot spots" will be looked at again with a closer more precises view, but I am confidant. I feel great, still a little tired, but getting stronger every day!!!

It is just unbelievable how fast things go, and when you first get diagnosed, it feels as though it is never ending! Still feels that way a little bit since I continue to have surgeries, but those too are coming to an end, and it is just glorious what I have waiting ahead for me! I plan on taking in every day that is given, and giving back as much as possible on each and every one of those days! I also plan on making it my mission to spread the word about Breast Cancer among young women!! Young women are all too often shocked when I tell them at age 20 they can have breast cancer! Men are still just as shocked to find out that they too can get breast cancer! Ignorance is not bliss in this instance! I plan on plastering the social media sites, You tube, my neighborhood, and anywhere it will be allowed! I will get the word out there, I will make a difference, and my children will reap the rewards some day! I plan on the phone calls that they get always being good news, no bad news is allowed! A cure is around the corner, I can feel it!!! I will continue to walk and spread the word!

Walk, walk, walk!!!
From the shoes of our souls, to God's heart, we will find a cure!

You've gotta be....Brave! But how?!

Brave, is something that people often tell me I am...Brave....Hmmmm Am I brave or am I just here doing what I need to do?! Would I not be brave if by chance I had terminal cancer and decided NOT to do treatment? Would I still be brave at that point, if I just said enough is enough? No, because at that point you often hear people say, "Well she fought a good fight", or "it is just too much at some point".  No "F" that! If I have terminal cancer, returning from before, and I decide that I am done, because I have already been through too much, and knowing that giving in now, and not putting my family through more, is easier, for me and them... THAT IS BRAVE!

I was not brave during my first ever chemotherapy treatment, which was shortly after having my daughter. It was in pill form and back then, I walked into a room with no one around, they brought in a box, left it on the table and walked out. I wept like a baby as I opened the box to reveal my one little blue pill that made me feel like death was upon me. BUT, I continued on because I had babies, not because I was brave... I was not brave when I had my double mastectomy... I have had roughly 25 surgeries before this one in my life time, surgery was not an easy thing, but it didn't scare me. This however sacred me, I again wept like a baby all the way to the surgical sweet and all the way up until they knocked me out! That was certainly not brave, that was a necessary surgery to save my life in order to continue to see my children grow and my husband hug me tight at night! And I most certainly was not brave during my first IV chemotherapy this year. When you have reached a status of having to have chemotherapy a second time, in a lifetime, you start to put things into perspective a little bit more and numb yourself from things until after they have occurred. So maybe I appear brave, but I most certainly was not when I would get home crawl in bed and forget weeks at a time only to try and fight my way to consciousness just to know my children and husband were safe and healthy.

At this point going through treatments for two different types of Cancer at two different times in my life, that isn't brave, that is fighting for my live to let the doctors learn more about this horrible disease, that is doing what I need to do in order to ensure a normalcy for my family, it is doing what needs to be done! All those men and women out there that have to make the impossibly hard decision to stop treatment because it is simply just too much, THOSE ARE THE BRAVE ONES! Once cancer is in remission and returns, it is all too often with a vengeance, and it is not an easy pill to swallow hearing the words, "it has returned, and it has progressed"!

I have the fear weighing on my shoulders on a daily basis... The first sign of a headache, the thoughts are now, "has it spread".... The aches and pains in my joints, "do you think the cancer has moved into my bones?" My kids start to get bruises and aches and pains, and you mind now all the sudden turns to the worst thought that could ever enter your mind! Is it possible to ever get thoughts like this out of your mind? I think these thoughts continue to bounce around in your head over and over and over again, until the next phone call happens that confirms your worst fears!

There are so many people out there that have these thoughts bouncing around their heads and live normal lives, but that thought, of what if, it is always there! So brave, I would not call myself, I don't know how to be brave, and I don't know how anyone could be brave when they have the weight of the world on your shoulders... Brave I am not, hopeful I am that I never have to be brave to make a decision that I never want to make. Brave I will be if the that time ever comes, for my children, for my family, for my friends, and for the world to see that brave really comes towards the end so you don't let others see your fear!

Handling the news as a child that Mommy is sick!

IT was hard as an adult to hear the words "CANCER"... However I just couldn't tell the kids right away, I couldn't let them see me upset or, mad, or scared! I HAD to be strong when we told them, or my kids would think the worst!! However, being armed with very little information, and not a lot knowing a lot about this particular strand of Breast cancer, we were a little scared ourselves!!

I had been diagnosed a while after I had already been seeing the doctors; due to the surrogacy and cervical cancer, so it was a little easier for the kids to handle the news that I was going to need more surgeries. However that was the end of the line.....

My daughter almost completely withdrew from talking to me about me, and my daily activities, and started relying more on her dad, teacher, brother, friends and writing. She acted almost as if nothing was wrong with me, didn't like to talk about cancer, or what was happening or what she was seeing... It was hard watching her dealing with this on her own, and trying to allow her to do it her own way. I wanted her to talk about it, and tell me her fears, wishes, hopes and thoughts. However, I didn't want to push it from what the doctors and past patients had told me, "just let her figure things out and work through it on her own and when she is ready she will let you know" That was the hardest thing, and she still doesn't talk much about it, but I have noticed she is starting to turn back to me now when something is wrong and being able to confide in me again about all of her issues and desires as a young girl. She now thrives on school, friendship, soccer, family and of course chocolate!!!

My son, being my son took an analytical approach to my treatment! He wanted to know details of how long, how bad, the statistics, everything! The problem with that is we didn't know all the information ourselves, and he was only 9, and a boy!! He shouldn't have to worry about mom's boobs!!! However he still had a few statistics to spout off about, "Statistically speaking, a woman  your age diagnosed with breast cancer typically either passes away at a early age of it being so far advanced or has it return later on as a cancer that has spread!" What a way to knock me off my seat!!! Yes, my son had used this approach the whole treatmetn and continues to use it on me!! He would hug me every day and tell me he was sorry that I had breast cancer! There were times when we would be walking in the store and I would be just so tired I had to just stop and stand in the middle of the isle, and he would walk back and ask if I was okay and say he was sorry... A little boy his age should not feel sorry for his mom, he should be worried about his school, friends, computers, books and just normal fun! It scared him that I was sick, and he hated the fact that people die from cancer. Not knowing how my cancer reacts to treatments and the over all over looming possibility that I may be one of those statistics scared him, and worried him!! He soon got to see that I was stronger than I let on, and that he and his sister gave me that strength!

My children will always be my main concern, and will always be my biggest support system. Along with my husband, my children and myself, I will fight tooth and nail and prevail!!!