April 7, 2023 - One Year Later

April 7 (10:51am to be exact), marks one year from my diagnosis.  

I’ve been pretty emotional the past week or so as today was fast approaching.  It’s been an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and pride, but on the flip side the fears and anxiety of the day of my diagnosis are resurfacing and I’m reminded of how scared we were. I think back to that day and hate that the first thing that came to my mind when the Radiologist told me I had cancer was that I wouldn’t make it to the holidays or my next birthday, my mind went to the worst possible scenario when we heard the news.  Now I know, I am stronger than I ever thought I was and so much braver than I ever wished to be and what is even more impactful, is that my husband, family and friends were right beside me the entire way.

 

As we look back at the past few years (beyond just 2022) we recognize that we’ve had some really tough years. When you search for the hardest things in life, you’ll find 5 events.  A serious illness, death of a loved one, moving, losing a job, and divorce.  Hitting 3 of the 5 hardest things in life in the span of 4 years really added up.  To take it back a bit as we continue to embrace 2023, here goes what started the lead up to 2022.

 

It began in 2019 when we sold our first home in Buena Park and bought a home in Seal Beach…hit our first hard life event, moving.  We love our house in Seal Beach, but buying/selling a home at the same time is stressful and moving is just the pits.  About 2 weeks into moving to Seal Beach my grandpa passed away, he was truly one of the best guys we had the opportunity to know and be loved by….we hit our second hard life event…death of a loved one. We talk about him often and I talked to him every night while going through chemo asking him to take care of me and our family.  Then COVID (most people’s first pandemic) hit in 2020 and it changed the world and how not only we did things but how we all had to adapt (side note, shouldn’t this be a hard life event?!).  2021 rolls around and we begin construction on our house.  This adventure was supposed to take 4 months and ended up taking 8 months, again moving twice in that 8 month span since we had to move out for construction.  Hard life event…moving, yet again.  We lived at Chris’s Uncles rental house during this time and we were able to spend so much time with him that it made a temporary home fun.  After settling into our house, one month post construction - March 5, 2022 we moved back home, BAM, we are told I had Stage 2 Breast Cancer.  Treatments, scans, surgeries, and doctors’ appointments started to pile up. Third life event, a serious illness.  All 3 events came at us in what feels like multiple slaps in the face in a short amount of time, despite it being over the course of 4 years.  We had no break. Not that any of this contributed to my cancer (since I am a BRACA carrier it was highly likely for me to be diagnosed), but 2022 was supposed to be our year to go on more vacations, get out in the world again, celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary, Chris’s 40^th birthday and really enjoy our newly remodeled home.  It was taken away from us for yet another year.  As we look back on the past 4 years there were a lot of really high highs but even bigger lows.  Through it all, we would change nothing about the past 4 years. Granted we’d want my grandpa to be alive, but we often talk about how worried he would have been to experience COVID and my cancer diagnosis. 2021/early 2022 brought us a home that we love and makes us feel calm and comforted.  

 

Fast forward to April 2022 and the remainder of the year that brought us so much pain and towards the end, pure gratitude for the end result.  The doctors, the medicine and research, the nurses, our family and friends – all contributed to curing me of cancer.  We think back and we would not have changed a thing about 2022 and how we approached our journey. We would have liked things to have been smoother towards the end, but there was nothing we could do about it, we weren’t in control.  We know we fought, and we fought REALLY hard. And as we share our story and meet new people, we find comfort in talking to those that have walked in our shoes, it has helped to heal our minds and heart and feel understood.

 

Today will always be a day that we celebrate going forward.  Celebrate the challenges we overcame, the lessons we learned and the life that we get to live.  Cheers to us, to life, to health, to happiness and to you.  

 

All our love, Chris & Lauren