Cancer, chemo, radiation, steroids, surgeries, the whole speal of this journey can leave your body in a wreck, a train wreck; a wreck that can take time to recover, maybe never even fully recover. ‘New normal' is what us in the cancer world call this. Finding your new normal is but another segment to the cancer journey. This can be incredibly challenging, even intimidating for many. Post-chemo can leave cancer survivors left hanging alone, an untraveled road, one that can lead into post-traumatic stress (PTSD).  Yes, 
post-traumatic stress is real and an entire topic alone (outside soldiers’ stories). Post-cancer treatment is often left unaddressed leaving cancer patients to find this new normal alone through trial and error. This can be dangerous, bringing frustrations to the added learning to live out the new normal of everything all ​

Two years to this day, I was on my way to my first photoshoot as a widow. I remember being in a cloud aka ‘widows’ fog but not to the full extend of where I had no control or not remembering. It had been only slightly over two months since I had lost my husband of 21 years suddenly and unexpectedly to a catastrophic brain stem hemorrhage stroke. He was 51 years old. I had to continue to do what I was doing without him. This advocacy awareness was definitely my calling and I was not going to reject this great invitation and experience. Am I glad that I didn’t now.

I had about a 3 hour drive to the beach to the photoshoot site, a location that I’d never been to before. I was looking forward to the scenic drive and had hopes to take the kids to the beach following the shoot.