Reminder becomes Reflection

Woman standing by calm lake holding travel mug with trees and mountains at sunrise — AI created image

Written April 6th, 2017 Reminder for Nothing

So I received an email reminder to have my annual mammogram yesterday. This brought up a lot of emotions as I no longer have breasts so I can’t have a mammogram. It has been a year since the mammogram that led to my breast cancer diagnosis. It seems like not that long ago and forever ago at the same time. I haven’t written anything for this blog in a long time as I have been struggling to decide if I should share my blog or not. As I have said before I started it to share the daily life, (or weekly) as would be more likely, of an elementary school teacher. It ended up being a great way for me to work through how I was feeling about my breast cancer. I have so far only shared it in a few closed groups and with a friend to get advice on whether to share it or not. I think I have decided to share it, but am still working out for myself why. What is the purpose of sharing my story?

I think the purpose of sharing my story is to inspire women to get preventative care, to help anyone who may be going through a similar experience and just to share. A mammogram is not a fun experience…it is kind of like bra shopping. You do it because it is necessary, which also means many women put it off. PLEASE DO NOT PUT IT OFF. My mammogram saved my life. My cancer was caught early and I chose a more extreme treatment to assure wiping it out of my body. Each person’s cancer story is different, but feeling supported and knowing you are not alone in the fight is comforting.

I also put off writing as I have been working through a lot of emotions connected to my physical and emotional healing. As I look back it is very surreal- from my initial cancer diagnosis to my cancer-free diagnosis was three months, which felt like three years. While the majority of my physical healing is done, I am still healing emotionally. At times, I have felt completely broken and others very empowered. While I know my looks don’t define me, society at large is very uncomfortable with people who don’t fit the basic mold. So I have had to come to terms with not having breasts and what this means…most people don’t notice or care. However, there is the rare occasion when people look at you funny. My angry side wants to shout I am a cancer survivor not a freak, stop staring. Then I take a breath and think ignore them. It is also hard because my tops and dresses no longer fit correctly. There are also a number of clothes I can’t wear due to strategically placed darts, cuts or padding added in swimsuits. While all small hurdles they are still new experiences that I can’t always predict. So I will continue to cross these hurdles, some I will clear easily and others I will pick myself up when I fall. No matter what I know I am strong and can get through anything.

If you are reading this…please ask a woman you know – have you had a mammogram recently? It could save her life 🙂

A reflection on Reminder for Nothing July 17, 2026

This passage has a lot packed in it:

Reminder email
What is the purpose of sharing my story?
The importance of mammograms & personal health
The emotions around how my body changed; amputation
Physical healing vs. emotional healing

I think these all deserve their own post, so more to come on all of these topics. Today let’s dive into the reminder email.

I assumed this was a robo-email added to the system after last year’s mammogram. Many emotions were already swirling as I neared one year after diagnosis and then cancer free shortly after diagnosis. At this point, I was physically healed, but not emotionally healed. I was still struggling with my body image, suppressed anger and continued fear about it coming back somehow. I cried after reading the email. Then later was offended that this email would be sent. Then after calming down I knew I needed to call and ask to have reminders for mammograms removed. There is nothing to squish anymore.

The next day, I called and asked the receptionist how to get yearly reminders removed from my account as I had had a double mastectomy last year due to cancer. She was kind and apologetic. At the end of the call, I felt bad for her as she apologized many times during our call. Robo-reminders being taken away was all I asked – “please help so this doesn’t happen again next year”. She assured me no more would happen and they haven’t. I had enough physical reminders without a yearly phone call.

However, this opened up all the feels. Only a year before I have been scared, numb and worried about my health and future. Also, feelings of gratitude for early detection, options for how to treat and my healthy, cancer free recovery.

As I look back, I am proud of kindly advocating for myself. I didn’t yell or blame the person on the other end of the phone. I asked for reassurance that no more reminders would happen. Reassurance along the way gives more peace of mind than you would think. I had enough reminders without more. The roller coaster of emotions that comes with cancer and healing is a twisted track with unexpected turns and emotions.

More to come soon on the other ideas in the previous writing.

With coffee and kindness – Hearwriter Studios

Self-compassion: a reflection

Written Oct. 15,2016

Why’s and giggles

Life has felt very much at a juxtaposition lately. One moment asking why has life been so challenging and the next playing and laughing with my daughter, my class or my friends. This has made life feel chaotic and content all at the same time. I am working on being self-compassionate…this is very hard. I have made a life habit of being too hard on myself. Along with putting a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect. Except it has come to my attention that I am trying to be perfect by society and my own unrealistic expectations. This is where the self compassion is coming into play. I have worked a lot on saying it is okay if I don’t get to everything today. As always it will be there tomorrow and as long as no one is hurt (including myself) by not getting to it today all is well.

The why’s: there is a quote about being given the life you can handle. Basically stating that we are given so many challenges because we are “strong enough” to handle them. I can now confidently say I am strong enough to handle them. However, why do I have to be SO strong all the time. When do I get to lean on someone else? Why so many tests in this life? What am I to learn from being SO strong so much of the time?

I know I am not the only person who feels this way, but in our society it is not ok to share out loud these thoughts…that makes you broken and weak. Not many people are equipped with the compassion to listen with an open heart and not judge others in their time of need. How do we make this change? When will it be seen as a strength to be self-compassionate and compassionate towards others? I hope one day soon we can move towards being more compassionate to everyone including ourselves!

Compassion: n, deep awareness of the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it.

This leads me to the idea that self-compassion is noticing your own suffering on a deep level. Along with wishing to relieve it. I believe this wish is only helpful if you take action to relieve your suffering in a healthy way. This is different for each person. Healthy in a physical, emotional or spiritual way. I don’t want to confuse self-compassion with excuses to avoid the hard in life or suffering. I do want to find ways to process the hard. For me, I process through writing and creativity. I love journaling, finding thoughtful prompts to reply to , shamanic letter practice and stream of consciousness writing ( aka – dump my thoughts on the page). I also love to draw or paint with music to help me let my thoughts drift around and see what may be bothering me or “solutions” to what’s bothering me.

Self-compassion has helped me process the whys from my previous writing. I still know and believe I am strong enough to handle hard things. However, I am also learning to ask for help ( this is hard). I think this learning of hard lessons is helping me to love myself, set boundaries and to know I am worthy of my own love, kindness and compassion.

With coffee & kindness – Heartwriter Studios

Proud & Grateful not Lucky

On Oct. 2, 2016, I wrote the following:

Lucky! I am a lucky person. You may read that after my previous posts and wonder if I have lost my mind. I have not! This morning while driving home from having pictures taken I realized how lucky I am. I have a wonderful, silly, kind daughter. I am abundant enough to get her pictures taken and to provide a good home for us. We have heat, food, and shelter. I have the love and friendship of many family and friends. I am grateful for all I have in my life.

Here is my present reflection on that writing:

June 2026

Now almost 10 years later, I would use the words grateful and proud instead of lucky. I have the life I am living due to choices and the work I do each day. Not just my job, but healing and emotional work. My job provides the money for the food, shelter and warmth for my family. However, I have also grown emotionally during this time. I try to look at life from the positive side even when hard things happen. It has taken a very long time, but I can confidently say I am proud of my life and all the hard work I have put into being where I am today.

I am proud of:

* raising my daughter

* 25 years in teaching

* owning my own home

* being a breast cancer survivor

* my ability to provide for my family

* my healing work

* acknowledging and using my creative side

*my kindness

I am grateful for:

* my daughter

*abundance

*family & friends

*writing and creativity

*time in my art studio

*quiet moments

*warm coffee mornings

This does not mean life is perfect and easy. Life has had and will continue to have its ups and downs. How I react to these ups and downs is different now. I am also much wiser in how and what I share. Along with who I share these ups and downs with at the time they are happening. I am not trying to hide or overshare for attention. Older and wiser has helped me prioritize what is important to me and not worry what the outer world wants to feed me as important. I am proud and grateful for the life I have built. It didn’t come with luck. It came from my hard work; physically, emotionally and spiritually. I am grateful for all of the lessons life has thrown my way. I am a better person because of these lessons. I am proud of and grateful for my life.

With coffee & kindness – Heartwriter Studios

No Mud, No Lotus

Here is what I wrote in September of 2016

Second Guessing

I never knew I could second guess so many things: what I eat, what is in foods – should I eat it – should I feed it to my daughter??? Could there be more problems in the future? Should I have the genetic testing done? What do I do for my daughter if it comes back positive in the genetic testing?

All of the above questions make me think – BREATHE – JUST BREATHE. It is good to second guess things. That means you are thinking about what is happening in your life, not just letting life happen to you. I am also realizing as I second guess different parts of life I have to take a calm, thoughtful approach to how to handle each question or situation. One of my favorite sayings is No Mud, No Lotus…you can’t have the good without it being a bit messy. So I am going to wade, wallow or even sink into the mud knowing that if I can get through the mud there will be something beautiful at the end. I am learning to embrace the small moments…they are TRULY the big moments in life.

The little things (small moments): my daughter’s laughter and silliness, a good song, a cup of warm coffee, laughing with friends, my students’ silly ideas and hard work…these are just a few of the many good things in my life!

So my friends second guess away. Then just breathe and enjoy the little things.

A glowing pink lotus flower emerging from dark, swirling swamp mud in a mystical forest setting

Second Guessing becomes Gratitude ( reflection on September 2016 writing)

Now I believe what I saw as second guessing is really the reflective nature of my thinking and when worried overthinking me takes over the internal conversation. With reflection comes gratitude – what in my life am I grateful for, big and small? This helps to settle my overthinking mind.

I still embrace the saying No Mud, No Lotus. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the muddy moments in my life. Sometimes I have wallowed in the mud and other times I have sunk into the mud to listen. I have learned a lot from these muddy times. Not to say this was easy or fun, but helpful in illuminating things I wasn’t able to see. I have learned how strong I am, who my supportive family and friends are and that life ebbs and flows between mud and blooming. Mud is not a shoe dropping, just a natural part of life’s messiness. I can honestly say I am grateful for the mud in my life. The muddy moments have taught me a lot. I am still grateful for my daughter’s laughter and she gives the best hugs. I am grateful for the supportive community of family and friends I have in my life. I am grateful for how proud I am of what I have done in my life despite the mud. I have bloomed into a kind, strong woman who knows her worth (even if I still doubt myself at times). My younger self would be proud and in awe of who we have become ebbing and flowing between the mud and beautiful flower moments in life.

With coffee and kindness – Heartwriter Studios

Healing and Grief

The following piece was started as I restarted my blog about part of my breast cancer story. Then recently I unexpectedly lost one of my dogs. This lead to adding more about grief. I am sure there will be more in future, but this is a good start to the ideas of healing and grief.

Healing – what is it?

It is physical, emotional, years in the making! It ebbs & flows.

The definition of healing is: vb., to make free from injury or disease: to make sound or whole.

So then my question is how does one make you free from your emotional injury? How do you become whole again? Is it the same wholeness as before? Or a changed wholeness? What has changed? Is it “better”? Or just changed?

Hmm, let’s look at the word disease. The definition of disease is: a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.

Sometimes healing is physical as in healing from a disease, but sometimes healing is from emotional pain like grief. At its essence grief is emotional pain in the form of sorrow, sadness and/or suffering. This can come from many different hardships.

The definition of grief is: n., suffering hardships; n., emotional pain, generally arising from misfortune, significant personal loss, bereavement, misconduct of oneself or others etc.; sorrow, sadness.

Personal loss, this feels like many different things wrapped up into one. Grief at the loss of people, animals, life changes, the lost ideas of what you thought life would be and more. How do we unpack these losses if we have put them in a box on the shelf? If we take the box down and open it, what will happen?

When will the other shoe drop…gasp

This was my first post in May of 2016: A whole new world!

My first post – this opens a whole new world. The Other Shoe, I have always used this expression in a negative way, but starting today I am turning it into a positive. In the past when I felt as though life was going well, I would wonder when will the other shoe drop and make life hell. Now I am choosing to say when the shoe drops I am going to pick up the other foot and kick life in the a$$.

After rereading this beginning post, I wondered: what does the other shoe mean to me now?

In all honesty, it is a phrase that has dropped out of my vocabulary. I decided I had to think more positively about life. Life has ups and downs, but I can either look at the downs as horrible & of course bad happened OR I can look for the lesson and know it is just part of life. This didn’t make it any easier when the downs happened, but I think it helped me to see the many positives I had in my life by not focusing on the negatives. In these last ten years I have worked to focus on gratitude for what I have in my life. Along with the small wins, even if the small wins were 20 minutes of quiet in the morning while I drank my coffee or a hug from my daughter. These were and still are the BIG moments in my life. I know some of you may think that makes your life pretty boring and that may be true. I celebrate my small wins and big wins as big wins nowadays. These are my gratitude moments. These are for me and no one else.

Honestly, I have worked hard for the life I have created and am living. It is not perfect, but it is mine. I am proud of the life I have created for myself and my family. I am proud of the “shoe drops” , some have been the biggest lessons in my life. They have helped me reflect on who I am and how I want to move forward in life.

So while I don’t use this phrase (when will the next shoe drop?) anymore, I know life will have ups and downs. I will take them as they come. I will find the lessons, have f@** you moments, choose joy, choose gratitude, and keep flowing with life and see where it takes me. Right now it is taking me to the kitchen for another cup of coffee 🙂

With coffee and kindness from Heartwriter Studios ♥️

10 years cancer free!

Ten years ago, I started a blog as I was healing from a double mastectomy due to breast cancer. I was not feeling worthy enough and had imposter syndrome. I published it, but didn’t advertise it to the world at large. I shared the link in a Facebook group for women with breast cancer. I received a few kind comments, but didn’t feel like I was worthy of sharing my story. I am now ready to share my story. I am ready to share my healing journey and hopefully bring together a community of kind, empathetic, and compassionate people looking to make meaningful connections. I would like to share my healing journey in hopes of showing people that being vulnerable about your healing can help others and also you. Whether we admit it or not we all have suffered, something has hurt us physically, emotionally or spiritually. I do not share this to tout myself as an expert. I am not a doctor, therapist or specialist of any kind. I am an ordinary person sharing her life and healing journey.

At the time of my breast cancer diagnosis I felt life had taken a positive upswing. I had just passed the one year anniversary of living in a house I had purchased on my own. I was a single mom working hard to support myself and my family. I was healing from feeling unworthy of love and found myself in a good place, emotionally and physically. I had gone to my doctor to check in on feeling tired a lot of the time. She chalked it up to being a full time working mom and teacher. Of course I was tired! As I left the nurse handed me a referral for a mammogram. I asked why I was being referred for a mammogram. She told me it was time for my next (second in my life) mammogram, so I thought nothing of it. Being a tired, single teacher mom I scheduled it for Spring Break to help alleviate having to get a substitute. It comes with extra work to prepare for a substitute and I didn’t want the extra work on top of parent conference prep. So I waited for Spring Break, it was the perfect solution.

I had my mammogram at the end of Spring Break. I got a call that I needed to go in and see the doctor about something that was found in my mammogram results. There were calcifications in my breast. This led to an appointment for a needle biopsy. I would like to say that the table used for this procedure was not designed for comfort or dignity. You lay face down on a hard table with a hole in it for your breast to “fall through” for the procedure. (My head turned towards the wall for 45 minutes…such a crink in the neck) Your breast is then held in place like a mammogram for the biopsy. If you are not positioned just right you get readjusted and squished again…the third time was a charm for me. Then I lay like this for 45 minutes while the male doctor and female nurse worked to bore out breast tissue like a core sample of earth. Once they had all the samples the nurse had me follow her to a mammogram room where she took pictures of the samples. I had to follow her so I could visually see that she had my breast tissue and it wasn’t mixed up. It felt like a walk of shame. Here I follow my possibly cancerous tissue down the hall in my paper gown before getting redressed worrying with every step. Then back to the room to get dressed while the samples were prepared to be sent out for testing. While the nurse was kind and empathetic, it was a very uncomfortable appointment overall. I was then told I would hear back in 7-10 days. I got a call from the nurse at my general practitioner’s office three days later. I needed to come in the next morning to talk to my doctor. I knew then that she was going to tell me I had breast cancer. It was a long night. I had to paint on my happy mom face and go about a normal evening. Oh and I needed to get a substitute and write up plans for the next morning for my doctor’s appointment. Needless to say this began my breast cancer journey and a healing journey that opened many new and old wounds in me for the next many years to come.

I am posting this on the 10th anniversary of being cancer free!!! I chose my surgery date as my cancer free date. May 19th is the day the surgeon took the cancer out of my body. If you are reading this, thank you. I begin my blog again feeling empowered and ready to share my healing with the world.

If you are interested and would love to read more of my journey stay tuned. I am working on reflections for my earlier posts from 9-10 years ago.

With coffee and kindness from Heartwriter Studios

Been awhile…avoidance

It has been a while since I wrote anything. I am setting a goal to write 2 or more times a week. Sometimes I will publish them and other times it will be for me. I am trying to work on my self compassion. Still feeling my way through life post cancer. I am still healing physically and emotionally. There are many days I feel healed and others when I feel lost. This is a new path in life with emotions still to work through and figure out; what am I learning about myself during this time. As for any lessons in life it will have its ups and downs. I can say I am truly thankful to learn these lessons even if they are hard. I have many things to be thankful for in this life. I have a great family and friends who have shown me it is ok to ask for help and support. They have shown me love and kindness throughout this past year. I look forward to paying it forward to those in need as well.

Fall is here!

Here in the PacNorWest we were supposed to have a NASTY storm. It was not as bad as first predicted in my area…thank goodness!

It ended up being a great weekend.

Laundry done – check

School planning – check

Fun – Check, check….games played, pumpkins carved, drawing, laughing, cuddles

Thank you weather for helping me to hunker down at home and get some fun in for this weekend! Here’s to more rainy weekends inside 🙂

Heartwriter Studios

with coffee and kindness

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