Mattox Live

Two years ago today, I had my lumpectomy.

In my new job with the After Breast Cancer program with the YMCA, I gather information from participants. Included in that information, I ask them important milestones of any breast cancer journey.

When were you diagnosed? When did you complete chemotherapy? When did you have surgery?Etc.

For about a year after diagnosis, I could quip those exact dates off to you without thinking about it. They were dates completely embedded in my mind. Today, my only date I can respond with immediately is when I had my biopsy, and then the day I got the call. Those dates will probably never fade from my memory.

But the other dates? Perhaps its a little bit of chemo-brain — something that lingers long after chemo for me. My ability to remember things has never fully bounced back, and I have absolutely had to just accept that fact. But perhaps its the fact that, thankfully, life has gone on and thanks to moving forward those dates just don’t matter as much any more.

So when I noticed in my Timehop and Facebook memories that today was two years since lumpectomy, I smiled a little. It wasn’t on my radar that we would be here already. It doesn’t feel like its been two years. In the exact same breath, how has it ONLY been two years?

But I celebrate the fact that two years ago, that surgery discovered I’d had a pathological complete response to chemotherapy. I guess in a way, you could say that I am two years cancer-free. However, I have a hard time saying that, with the ever lingering shadows of, “What if it comes back?”

So I don’t give either side of that coin any power. I don’t dwell on the “what if?” and instead just enjoy life. I don’t dwell on the, “I won!” and instead focus on what I can do to stay in victory lane.

“I didn’t fight so hard to live to not live.”

I don’t remember who I heard say that first, but its become a mantra of mine. LIVE. And if you happen to remember you’re living in a milestone day? Celebrate it and honor it. Like I am doing today.

Two years down. A life time to go.