1000 Days

1000 days ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. When you hear that word it kinda sorta makes you wonder if it’s time to start counting down your days. If you know me, I’m kinda sorta an out of the box kind of girl, so I didn’t really feel like counting down because that sounded anticlimactic. Anticlimaxes rain on my parade.

Somewhere in the beginning of my cancer journey I came across another blogger who was celebrating her 1000th day since being diagnosed or 1000 days of being cancer free and at first I was jealous that I didn’t think of it first. Then I just decided to be a copycat when I got there.

Now I’ve been there, done that, and I’ve got to tell you, I sure do like the view from here. 1000 days is definitely one of my favorite 1000 gifts [#112]. I’ve had the most amazing 1000 days EVER.

• I graduated my M&M from homeschool last May [#113]
• I retired from homeschooling [#114]
• I wrote a book, which has been the biggest dream my whole life. It’s calledSHAKEN NOT STIRRED…A CHEMO COCKTAIL. It’s a postcard of sorts from the other side of breast cancer and chemo: Been there, done that, had to buy a new t-shirt. It’s a comedy about my tragedy. [#115}
• I baptized my sister [#116]
• I got to go on a Roman Holiday with Dave to celebrate our 20th anniversary (a tad late) and the end of the “bad” chemo days. [#117]
• I received The Tiffany Award, which granted me membership at Five Seasons Sports Club, to help regain my fitness and get my tennis game back after cancer and chemo. [#118]
• My tennis team won play-offs, against crazy odds, my first season back. It even made it in The Enquirer. [#119]
• I got an article published in the Christianity Today online magazine for breast cancer awareness month. [#120]
• I was honored to be able to present The 2009 Tiffany Award to Mary Jo Cropper, may she rest in peace. The breast cancer center at Bethesda North Hospital, where I got my mammogram, is named after her, so it was so beautiful to me to be able to both honor her and thank her personally and publicly. [#121]
• When I downed my last chemo cocktail in December 2009, we had the best family Christmas vacation EVER at Marco Island. [#122]
• I traveled with my Mikey for a couple days in Paris before dropping him off in Germany, where he did a 7 month internship with YWAM. Then I made my way home slowly via taking the Eurorail through the Alps to Munich to Innsbruck to Bologna to Pisa to Cinque Terre to Florence to Venice Italy.[#123]
• I received the generous gift of a holiday in Cancun with Dave-O from the Karen Wellington Foundation for LIVING with Breast Cancer. [#124]
• I walked half a marathon in the Cincinnati Flying Pig this year! [#125]
• So far I’ve done the Indiana, Atlanta, and Columbus, OH Races for the Cure this year. [#126]
• I actually ran most of the Atlanta one, which was my first 5k to run not walk. [#127]
• I’m currently working on helping to bring The Scar Project to Cincinnati to kick off “Pinktober.” It’s an awareness raising, beautiful, breathtaking, captivating, heartbreaking, impactful, meaningful, powerful Pulitzer nominated photographic exhibit of breast cancer subjects and their scars. [#128]
• While I'm on subject of my 1000 Gifts...I heart my oncologist, Dr. Lower [#129] and my breast surgeon, Dr. Stahl [#130] and my port surgeon, Dr. Runk [#131]-(Even though my port was notmy favorite thing-I totally don’t hold it against her;)
• And I also superheart Julia Fikse [#132] and save the ta-tas [#133] for making stuff that makes me laugh and that also supports cutting edge research to end breast cancer, all in one fell swoop, not to mention a cool t-shirt.