We grieve when we loose someone; a family member, a friend....we all grieve together....another loss can feel like grieving the loss of our husbands/loved ones all over again...did you know that even Jesus grieved, too? Jesus was heavy-hearted when he saw the people grieving and learned of the death of his friend, Lazarus. Why, the Jews even mocked him for doing such! John 11:33-37: "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!" But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”"

We are reminded to not stay stuck in our grief. We have to press on, press through it. It seems like grief is an often visited place as we lose many of our precious ones, and again, it can take us to that place when we grieved our husband/loved ones. Grief is needed in order to begin the process of healing. Ecclesiasties 3:4-5 tell us that there us "A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away."

I love what John 16:22 says, "So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy."

We have the true hope to see our loved ones and dear friends again. They are waiting for us in the presence of our Lord. It is alright to grieve, but we grieve with Hope, and we have to remember to keep pressing on through our grief with our Lord and in prayer. Our God will see us through. We are all here to support one another, so please reach out when you feel the need. Do not stay alone in your grief in any stage, and remember, you are not alone.

You're a survivor from a cancer, maybe two, even three time cancer survivor. That's great! Congratulations! You have passed those first few years of excessive worry, along with continued, continuous heavy monitoring, and oh, those pesky side effects from treatment. You've faced those recurrence fears, the intense scanxiety and you begun to find your new normal. You had so many questions and concerns that led to increased anxiety, stress and possibly depression. You've accomplished the healing, the starting of the healing, at least; the scars, health and mental from this life changing event. 

Those first five years were by far the addition to the most stressful and traumatic time of your life. Those 5 years have drug on for what seemed like forever, while, at the same time, passed by relatively quickly for that time was consumed with so many news for this new life into your new normal and the beginning stages of healing. 

Some, during those fresh survivorship years, are heavily involved in other activities as part of their new normal, including being active in participation of health studies, research surveys, and other community outreaches. Many find this new normal also involves life changes that resulted from personal change, such as a job switch, going back to school to earn a degree or certification, possibly even moving into a new location, whether a gain or a loss of financials.

Busy with all of the new normals, consumed with it daily, leading to one day-BOOM! You realize that you are no longer in that early stage. You look back to see that you are entering into long-term survivorship. How did this happen? How could this be? Where did the time go?! Year after year of counting the new anniversary dates as if they were added into others like birthdays....heck, you may have even found yourself celebrating each cancerversary and chemoversary. You have come this far! Amazing!

Upon realizing you have entered into long-term survivorship, there grows an even deeper appreciation for life and that that particular number of years into your survivorship. Do not be fooled; however, because alongside your celebrating come those long-term side effects of cancer and any of its treatments received.
I am almost a 9 year survivor-wow-9 years, A rare placental cancer called choriocarcinoma from a complete twin molar pregnancy is what gave me the name of 'cancer survivor'. My 9 year old daughter is the surviving twin from that molar pregnancy. It dawned on my very recently that I was no longer within those stages following survivorship when I received an email for a cancer research organization asking for cancer survivors to fill out a questionnaire survey. The catch-survivors had to be within 5 years or under to qualify for submission. What?! After years of doing this, that I longer could participate in some of these now and although I was a tad bit bummed to not be able to put my feedback and experience to use for the study, I was thrilled, though, to actually know that I was beyond that timeframe and into a new stage of survivorship! 
Pausing and reflecting my own cancer journey, there are times now, many, that realized that I no longer had that continual reminder that I am a cancer survivor. I actually forget and feel like a 'normal' person most of the time, that is, until something comes up, say a simple illness or a pain, or side effect issues, and um, well, labs. 

Having entered into the long-term survivorship process gives perks of being somewhat settled into your new normal, things that were felt with a stretch course of time. Having this can lead to a more relaxed life with continued maintenance of such side effects, knowing the dos and don'ts of managing those side effects. This is a more comfortable fact of management that allows more free time to live life outside of those cancer side effects.

As I mentioned prior, the sidekick of this adjusted new normal are long-term side effects lingering, possibly even new ones that pop-up. This new acknowledgement takes you into a new shift of dealings and self- recognitions. There may be long-term side effects that have entered a step further into needing to access and retry that new normal. There may new side effects or health issues from that have to be discovered or dissected to be found. There are even possibilities of another cancer or a secondary cancer that creeps up for particular chemos given.

Labs. Yes, those famously known lab draws. The one thing that I learned is that even after almost 9 years out, scanxiety is still readily there at annual labs. There is a small lingering amount of PTSD from the initial traumatic experience event, even to the least of remembering that very feeing of it to a 'T' which can lead to bringing up PTSD all over, maybe not a strong, but it is still there. There may be a possibility of more self-control to handle it, knock it down with time spanned between your healing and initial dealings of it. It reminded me of training for something,  say a dance routine. With your continued practice and time put into it, you gain your experience to better control and deeply feeling that practice.

For me, labs were such firsthand, receiving weekly chemo with every other week being inpatient for 3-4 days for 6.5 months, my blood was always being drawn and send off, waiting for the results in the oncology department to know if we could move forward or go backward. Once the chemo treatments were finished, I was still being sent to the lab for heavy monitoring: weekly to bi-monthly to monthly to every three months, down to every 6 months then annual for a few years. That sift was excessively hard and for another story!

So what do we take away from all of this? Well, long-term survivorship has a fine balance between pros and cons, but for some, more pros than cons. Here is a list:

Pros-
1. Maintenance of long term side effects
2. Short term side effects have diminished
3. Settled into new normal following cancer diagnosis and treatments
4. Time to heal physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually (especially for    reproductive cancers)
5. Gained knowledge and experience leading to a new you, a new life such as a career change
6. Give others hope, even without knowing it
Cons-
1.New side effects or health issues arise from cancer and/or treatments which lead to finding those new normals
2. Continuation of cancer/cancer treatment related health issues
3. Secondary cancers can arise from treatments 
4. Not qualified to volunteer for some various cancer research/surveys
5. Lingering PTSD

Embrace how far you've come. Celebrate how far you've come. You deserve to celebrate you survivorship and declare it to the world to give hope to others that are behind you in their cancer journey. Celebrate YOU! Celebrate LIFE!

◇ You lose at least half of yourself

◇ Grieving is pain, tears, anger, regrets, grief dreams, even heart pain (known as broken-hearted syndrome)

◇ You can love/be loved again

◇ You can have the pain of another loss again (big fear for most)

◇ You will always have the pain of your loss

◇ You will always love/miss your loss

◇ There is a mixture of pain and love together; imagine a rainstorm with a rainbow as you begin to heal, even find love again

◇ Your loss and new love will always have an overlap to a degree or more

◇ Loss pain does become more manageable with time

◇ Grief can be a mixture of all stages, even jumping from level to level, out of order

◇ The first 2 years are the hardest after a loss

◇ There is no limit in your time to grieve; as a matter of fact, once you've had a loss, there will always be grief to some degree, which leads to:

◇ We 'move forward', not 'move on'

◇ Our loss will always be a part of you/your children

◇ You have to heal first/refind yourself before finding love after loss

◇ Tears have to come in order to begin healing

◇ You will smile again

​Now to the remarkable unplanned portions of this book journey facts?! There are seven chapters, it took 7.5. months to write, edit and publish, being pre-released to family and friends on my 7 year cancerversary in May AND being published-get this-on my late husband's date of death in June. This is beyond what anyone could ever plan intentionally! There are many scenarios in-between that led up to those facts, those scenarios that I had no control over. I actually wanted everything to happen on my 7year cancerversary, but having the publication on his day is the absolute perfect closure for me. It was over-emotionally. empowering. Through those emotions and tears, the kids and I found ways to rejoice, celebrate, and honor their dad and God together. It was a definite emotional ride but so graciously sure and true and just. Isn't our God just amazing?!

To pick up your copy (or to simply check it out, even view a few pages) go to Barnes & Noble or Amazon, where an eBook is available thru Kindle.

Here’s a shout out to gynecological cancer month, you know the ones like uterine, ovarian, cervix but what about the other ones, say, vulvar, or placental? What? Placenta cancer? Is that what you read? Placental cancer, yes. You read that right. Cancer of the placenta. Yes, the same special organ that forms during pregnancy. The same organ that feeds and nourishes the baby, that is, in a healthy and normal pregnancy. What? What is this? The technical name is choriocarcinoma, a type of gestational trophoblastic disease or GTD. How do I know this, you may be wondering? Why, I am a survivor of this rare type of gynecological 

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. 

As we all sit in our homes, isolated away from our normal day-to-day activities and peeps, to the cancer world, this is nothing new or unexpected. Us cancer survivors and patients know first-hand about homebound isolation and staying away from people. We know about having to leave our day to day activities to allow for treatments, appointments, tests, resting, healing or just doing nothing but breathe. We know what it is like to have our entire life come to a halting stop. We know what it’s like to be sitting within our walls, watching from the inside. We know the ideas of confinement and withdrawals. We know the long-lived anticipation to return to normal, oh, yes, normal, a normal that many never get back to….we know all too well.

We know what it’s like wearing masks all while eyeing people from afar. We know all too well the varied 

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That is a question, a question for many facing chemotherapy or currently on chemotherapy. A question for some of us post-chemo or those who have been left with more permanent side effects. You’re left with the decision of changing your look in order to look similar to how you did before treatment or styling differently according to your new situation. Whatever your reason to question, it is always smart to learn the pros and cons. You should never feel pressured to do one thing or the other. During my long, hard​

Some are willing to talk about anxiety while others are not, remaining hidden beneath their fears and the torture of it. When my molar pregnancy disease progressed to aggressive malignant cancer choriocarcinoma, my anxiety was at its highest. A molar pregnancy is rare, and threatens the life of a child. In my case, this affected the twins I was expecting and in turn led to me getting cancer.

What is anxiety? Plainly put, it is stress, but it goes much deeper for many people; it can be internal fear, affecting everyday life, minute to minute, hour to hour. Typical signs are irregular heart palpitations, 

When you hear the word chemo, what are the first side effects that come to mind? The most commonly known ones are hair loss and nausea with vomiting. But are these all of the side effects of chemotherapy? Not at all! Anyone that has personally gone through it, along with the caregivers, know first-hand the nastiness and depth of chemo side effects.

I learned these firsthand when I was on an five agent cocktail for placental cancer choriocarcinoma from my complete twin molar pregnancy. Depending on the type of chemo, the length and the strength, some may vary from person to person, but below I’ve written out a list of some of 

It's not everyday you get to stay in the hospital, and most hospitals are far from luxurious. However everyone at some point in their lifetime spends at least one visit in the hospital, whether it be surgery, illness, or cancer treatment. Let's face it-hospital time is boring. Time seems to move very slowly. What are some tips to help the time pass?

I have done my share of time in the hospital after being diagnosed with placental cancer, choriocarcinoma,