Here I am!

It has taken me a long time to feel comfortable to reveal myself on my blog.  For a long time I felt ashamed of my cancer.  I guess in time you get use to it (it's not like I really had a choice.....it will always be a part of my life in some way).   Now I am to the point where I don't care if people know about my cancer, so here I am!

My name is Maria and this is my husband Joe and my son Jayden.  These photos were taken two months before my diagnosis on a wonderful family vacation to Disney and the Bahamas.

This photo was taken two days before my diagnosis as we searched for the perfect Christmas tree.  It's hard to look at these photos because back then I had no idea in two days my life would forever change.  These photos represent the care-free life I will no longer know.  I mourn having a care free feeling every morning when I wake up. 

Here I am now.  These photos were taken a few weeks ago on my celebratory trip with family and friends down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  This trip was meaningful because so many good friends and my sister were there to celebrate me completing treatment and being cancer free. 

I guess when I look at the photos, I see the same person, but so many things have changed both physically and emotionally.  In some ways I wish I could go back to my pre-cancer life, but there are some things that are better since getting breast cancer.  I guess I am going to try to focus on the blessings that have come out of this journey.  The good things are having the chance to find out how much my friends and family really care about me and what I mean to them.  Having cancer brought about many wonderful discussions with people in my life where they expressed things they may have never said to me if I had not gotten sick.  I have also come to appreciate saying good bye to corporate America and spending more time being a mom and wife.  I am adjusting to staying home, but it is so nice to be with my son so much more now that I don't have a demanding fulltime job.  I have made so many wonderful, new friends in my breast cancer journey.  I have a group of gals I chat with online everyday.  We are "Bosom Buddies" because we have all gone through breast cancer together.  Though we have never met, we are forever joined together in a special way.  I could not have gone through this journey without my "Bosom Buddies".  The last thing I have come to appreciate is that breast cancer brought my husband, son and I closer.  Now that we have moved away from family and friends, it is just the three of us.  We are spending much more time together alone which has been amazing.  I hope in time I will continue to find more blessings in this horrible disease.  I am trying to focus on the positives as much as I can despite cancer being such a negative thing.

So for those of you that have been reading my blog and wondering who I was, now you know.  You can put a face with the story you have read and see that life does go on after getting diagnosed with breast cancer.