Surviving Breast Cancer is an amazing organization that focuses on supporting women with breast cancer at all stages. Their programs offer the mental/emotional/physical support we all need when navigating this disease.

I have often said one of the reasons why I am so inspired to do this work, is because of the truly amazing women I meet. Caryn Sullivan @prettywellness is an example of that!

Are you washing your hands every hour? Are you practicing social distancing? Or are you thinking all this coronavirus hype is crazy and the media is blowing this out of proportion?

From a very young age I struggled with body image. My mother struggled with her weight after having children and projected that onto her daughters.

The definition of family can be different for all of us, but for some, family ties are forged from sharing the struggles of a disease that leaves scars beyond the physical.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in September of 2016 after I found a lump during a routine self-exam. On some level, I was not surprised.

A woman with no hair, eyebrows or eyelashes. A woman who was once referred to as pretty, but now loathed herself when she looked in the mirror. That woman was me.

Despite our medical teams’ best efforts when treating us for breast cancer, there is no way they are able to communicate everything we need to know as patients.

We have probably all heard how our lives flash before our eyes like a movie reel in the moments before we die.

"The mind can help the body heal, but to do that, you have to be able to have a positive mindset."

As published by Faces & Voices of Cancer

Paxman has been pioneering scalp cooling technology worldwide for over 20 years.

When I was going through chemotherapy, scalp cooling was not yet available. Six months later, it became available. Too late for me, but just in time for many others.

By the time 14 months of treatment were through, I was watching a woman I no longer recognized and could not bear to look at in the mirror. I realized that to truly be a survivor, I had to readjust my expectations of myself.

One moment is all it takes for your life to change. For those of us who have been diagnosed with cancer of any type, we have it burned in our memory the exact second life as we knew it - as we loved it, was no more.