Comfort and Fear

This past week has been a roller coster of emotion for me.  It started of on such an amazing high.  Kind of a long story but here goes....  When my kids were little I dressed them in a ton of hawaiian print clothes and I saved almost everything.  I swore I was going to buy a sewing machine, learn to sew and make a quilt out of all of it, some day!  Needless to say I still have not learned to sew let alone buy a sewing machine.  Fast forward 6 years, in an off chance I reached out to a friend at church to see if she could "help" me bring this project to life.
She said she would and was going to do some research and get back to me.  Well life goes on and she and her family moved to Utah and I really didn't think much of it.  Then I got cancer and another friend from church really wanted to do something for me so in talking with my friend in Utah they decided that the quilt had to happen.  Within only a few months and with the help from others, some of which I knew and some who I have never met I was handed the most beautiful quilt filled with all the memories of my kids growing up.
I could have added hundreds of pictures of my kids wearing all the clothes that are in the quilt but had to stop and I tried to not overwhelm you all.  Just the sight of the quilt brings tears to my eyes almost every time!  I don't know how I can ever thank everyone who was involved but a HUGE thank you to Dominique, Lori, Christina and the kind woman in Utah with the long arm, I have no idea what that is but the quilt is AMAZING!!!

The other emotion I have felt very strongly this week has been fear, something I never thought I would feel with only 2 treatments left.  I have fear of what is next, with triple negative breast cancer there is no medicine to take after chemo.  Fear of the unknown, with Lori's passing last week it makes everything so real and it brings up so many questions as to why her and not me.  I have so much fear of what is next for me.  I have one scan to do after I finish treatment but I am more worried about the next 3-5 years not 3-5 months.  I know by doing the double mastectomy and being very aggressive with my chemo treatments it gives me the best shot at beating this.  The biggest deal was that it was not in my lymph nodes yet and I understand the importance of that fact more and more everyday.  I can only hope that this fear is replaced by happiness and joy in this next part of my journey.

That brings me to hope, I hope I can help someone else who is yet to take this journey and I hope that the next steps in my journey and reconstruction go a smoothly as possible.  I hope my hair starts to grow back and quickly, I hope that Lori's family finds peace and knows how many people Lori touched in her life.  I just have hope and in the end that and faith is what will get us through.

Love to you all!