It's not over

 Kristen Dahlgren, from NBC did a piece on the TODAY show this past week about life after breast cancer. 

She said what I have been saying since I've first been around the block with this thing. 

The hardest part is when it's done. 

I know this seems incredibly difficult to understand. Our hair is growing back, surgeries are done, radiation burns have subsided; so explain to me the HARD part?

This is when we, as "thrivers", have time to breathe. This is our time to exhale and look back at all that we went through and say HOLY SHIT. 

It's not like we didn't say HOLY SHIT in the midst of it all. 

Because we did.

Often and perhaps multiple times a day. 

But afterwards, when we have time to lie in bed and not gear up for our next treatment; we may cry.

And maybe a lot.

And maybe for days or weeks or months. 

And maybe from time to time. 

We look at our scars more. 

We think back- a lot. 

We ache from our meds. 

We hate our meds.

We hate our bodies for putting us through this. 

We are thankful we are here.

We feel guilty that others are not. 

We curse our side effects from meds and treatments. Some that are lifelong effects.

We cry. (Yes. I know I mentioned this part) (It's because it's what we do).

But it is over. You are through the hardest part- we are told.

But are we? And is it over?

We worry. 

We worry it will come back and we are reminded every time we go for a scan that it's ,potentially, a reality. 

We worry that when we get off our meds, that we are no longer "protected". 

We know others who have had reoccurrences; will that be us?

How did we make it through what we just did?

We are exhaling. 

Yet we hold our breaths.

Please do not forget about us.

We still need the love and support you gave us through treatment. 

We move on. We don't forget. And we are often not through the worst of it. 

I get that this is hard to comprehend. 

Unless you're a thriver and you may be nodding your head going- YUP. This is me. 

As we end Breast Cancer Awareness month, as the pink ribbons turn into some other color of awareness, I just want to tell you that we are always aware. 

And that being 3 months out or 3 years out- it's still really freakin' hard,