What I posted on Instagram about December 2017 vs. 2016; follow me @thetimebetweenis or on Twitter @timebetweenis.

I have always loved December. It is my birth month, after all, and the holidays and even getting only one gift as a kid instead of two since birthday was so close to Christmas was not enough to ruin it. I also met my husband in December and sometimes that is something I celebrate and sometimes.... welll.....just kidding - at the end of the day, as I wrote here on this blog, he is a good man and I am lucky to have met him in-sickness-and-in-health.html.

Now, of course, after my breast cancer plot twist, I have even more reason to be in love with December. My birthday is December 13th and on that day last year, my big 4-0 birthday, I was getting a pet scan, which I found out the next day was all clear (best birthday gift ever) and then three days later, I had my surgery.

After the operation, when I was snoozing off the anesthesia, my surgeon called my husband and told him, “All of the cancer is gone; I removed all of it.” I guess now December 16th is the day of my re-birth. I will NEVER thank cancer but without it, I would not have become this improved version of me that I am today.

In the past, I worried about everything. I was not truly happy in my life no matter what. I would focus on the negatives and be so stressed and tired and not give a shit about taking care of me. I was the LAST person on the list for anything in my mind. I judged other people for taking care of themselves and for that, my silent judging, I am sorry. I held myself up to a standard that did not exist as I wrote about in my blog.

I wrote about my PTSD and all of the medical tests I subjected myself to recently and wanted to update that on December 1, I got my final report back for the endoscopy and everything that was biopsied was benign! I spent time worrying over those 3 weeks of waiting but nothing near to what I would have done before I walked the walk of a breast cancer patient. I did not let it take my joy, I did not let it take my sleep and I did not let it take my peace.

This month, I go and see my surgeon on the anniversary date of when my husband and I met. We went 16 years ago now on a Thursday night in December that feels like a lifetime ago. He was still on the job and working 12-24 hour shifts down at “ground zero” as we met the December after 9/11. We made it work, somehow, and next year is our 13th year of marriage. So on 12/21 when we are at Sloan for my mammogram, ultrasound of the remaining breast and my follow-up with the surgeon on the mastectomy site, I want to also celebrate us somehow...

Instead of worrying about these upcoming tests and visits, I am instead going to focus on the joy—the joy of being “cancer-free” at least as far as I know :) and I want to keep it that way. Last year at this time, I was not cancer-free and it really put everything in perspective.

I am still here, I am standing and this is what I do in the time between. I also decided as an early birthday gift to myself of upgrading my Weebly website to streamline the URL and also to add the Search bar (really for me so I can find stuff easily...).

Happy December to all of you—I wish you peace and happiness always and great health!