It is exactly three years to the day since I penned my blog post Cloudy, reflecting upon my physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. And here I am, three years later, finding myself in that similar state. Cloudy – all around and within me feels cloudy. I feel scattered, anxious, and irritable; and I struggle to maintain focus, clarity, and patience….
Breast Cancer
I have spent the final days of 2021 reading through blogs with the tagged post This Time Next Year. The idea of this tag is to write a post outlining your resolutions for the new year, how you are going to achieve those resolutions, and then, 365 days later write a post about whether or not you were successful. It’s…
“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” – Eckhart Tolle October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Although we are 3 weeks into the month, with the month drawing to a close, keeping the conversations open, the donations flowing, and the overall awareness of the disease in the forefront of our minds remains ever-important. Why is there a Breast Cancer Awareness…
Over these past few days I have kept busy diligently deep cleaning our home, and reorganizing as well as decluttering our space. I still have much to do, and I am trying to balance the tasks between my husband’s work-from-home schedule, my child’s school schedule, and my own work schedule. What would normally take four full days of deep cleaning…
June is a challenging month for me. It marks the occasion I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Each year that memory floods my conscious thought. I remember the gripping fear, the dimly lit room, the feel of the warm gel on my chest, the beeps and whirs from the machine, and the sound of the gun snap the moment the…
As the warm weather settles upon us, a common [social media] post I often find in my breast cancer support groups, is the search for an effective, natural deodorant. Wishing to eliminate potential risks by applying harsh and potentially hazardous chemicals to our tender armpits we – breast cancer warriors and survivors – want something that is safe for our…
As I reflect upon this pandemic, the duration, the isolation, and the devastation, I cannot help but feel a great sense of bewilderment, perhaps even loss, within myself. My path is altered. My life is changed. It feels so unfamiliar to me. And I know that I have experienced this before. It is a parallel experience lived to that of…
Postmastectomy pain syndrome (PMPS) – a chronic pain that does not go away over time. It is a very real condition that can affect women who have had a radical mastectomy, modified radical mastectomy, or breast-conserving surgery. Symptoms can vary from feeling persistent or intermittent pain in the chest, armpit, arm, and/or shoulder. In addition to the chronic pain, there…
Here we go again. Canada has surpassed 1 million COVID cases since the pandemic began. It is a sobering number, and it comes as we battle what should have been a preventable third wave – a wave proving deadlier to the younger demographic. Canadians in their 40s and 50s are falling seriously ill from the variants of concern and in…
March 2020. The world went still, quiet. People were afraid. The pandemic tore through our society altering how we communicate, work, and play. It altered every aspect of our lives. One year later we have not witnessed the return to normal. Here in Toronto, we are just barely out of lockdown, with most everything remaining closed. It has been 16…