Brave Heart, Brave Soul. She who is brave is free.

If you are a breast cancer survivor or have been actively involved in the life of one then you understand the feeling of falling into the pink abyss. I sometimes feel as if I am living out my life inside a strange other worldly type of experiment.   I seriously question my sanity some days noting my unusual view, humor and tango with the keeper of this abyss. I for one have felt trapped inside a strange lab, living inside a test tube at times but lucky me on special days I’m let out, set loose, in a big giant bubble to live among the normal folk. Being tagged or labeled and yes at times even feeling permanently tattooed with a BIG PINK RIBBON across my forehead if not the way I saw my life turning out.   Honestly speaking, if you feel the need to run from the giant pink abyss trying to swallow you whole,   possibly referring to this crazy breast cancer woman as the pink blob, then imagine how overwhelming, if not a tad strange it must feel for   those us   ...

Five years ago, I sat in my living room, just fresh off the chemo couch. I was facing another five months of being squashed under the weight of chemo’s poisonous  twin and triplet monsters as I wearily celebrated Mother’s Day with my family. My scalp was shiny, my tummy was turning and my boob was gone. I felt like a freak of nature to be really honest with you. The life I had planned on, dreamed about was not the one staring back at me.  I wanted to run, to hide to break every mirror in the house, to go back to my life as a two boobed, raven haired, slightly curvy, wanna be fem fetal. The truth was ugly, or at least I thought it was, as I sat there with lights flashing and giant signs pointing to the hole in the left side of my chest wall, boobless where once a multi boobed chest used to poke out from under my T-shirts. Now I was sitting, on the couch, with a self imposed gag over my mouth, a bandanna on my bald head and a swollen face, chemo induced, steroid fi...

Have you ever noticed we tend to live life just inside the city limits of worry? We inevitably bypass the country road detour of serene, calm and still choosing instead to floor the apprehension peddle before idling at the intersection of pain and panic heading on to the highway of uneasy.  We have even been known to turn down the side streets of distraught and concern, drive over the Bridge of Fright, while traveling to the worrisome, nervous city hall of Worry-Ville just to be sure our license for Alarm, Fear, Fright, Dread, Dismay, Hysteria and Anxiety have not expired!  The peaceful outskirts of town always seem within reach but never quite within walking distance.  We sit, lie on the grass, look through magazines dreaming of what life could be away from the anxious, vexed life we feel we have. How fabulous it would be if we could live inside our day dreams, what if we could move to the auspicious, cheery suburbs, putting in a pool of serenity, a gar...