Metastatic Breast Cancer: This is Day One

Metastatic Cancer- This is Day One

Please welcome Rachel Dubree to the blog today. Rachel and I met through a private, online support group for breast cancer survivors.

Rachel is a mom of four beautiful and talented children, a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, drill sergeant, short-order cook, housekeeper, chauffeur, manager, peacekeeper, nurturer, cheerleader, role model, trendsetter, innovator, mentor, leader, teacher, sports fan, prayer warrior and daughter of God.

And she just happens to have breast cancer. Metastatic breast cancer.

I welcome her brave, often raw words today, as a reminder of all that is good. Of all that is difficult. And why I join with you as we pray, hope, and believe for a cure.

It's a beautiful morning! Breeze is blowing. Sun is shining. Birds are chirping. Pups are wagging. God is still good. I still have cancer.

In fact, I have been aware that the beast is residing in my person for 2,542 days now. In that time, I have done endless loads of laundry, driven countless miles to and from schools, attended multiple open houses and parent teacher conferences, cheered from the bleachers at a gazillion athletic, musical and academic events, prepared hundreds of meals, updated the family calendar for months on end in everyone's specific color and run miles upon miles on my own two feet.

I have laughed and made love. I have raised my hands in worship and prayed.

I have danced. Boy, have I danced.

I have been fine.

I have also been the recipient of hundreds of rounds of chemo, been under the knife and had scopes or scans bunches, swallowed enough pills that the white ones alone could have formed a replica of White House if someone had a steady enough hand and some fierce glue, slept on the couch, slept on the edge of the bed, slept on the bathroom floor, slept on the toilet and spent several nights in the hospital.

I have vomited....a lot. Sometimes through my nose and hard enough to pop blood vessels in my eyes and my cheeks.

I have pooped bricks. I have uncontrollably pooped in almost every pair of pants that I own. I have been a test subject to multiple specially mixed mouth washes to combat mouth sores so that I could eat.

I have eaten everything in sight. I have gone days without eating.

I have been unable to move and cried out in pain. I have lost my fingernails, toenails and hair.

I have lost friends.

You can find the rest of Rachel's story at the Provision Project as she continues to write about the difficult and the beautiful in her story, Metastatic Breast Cancer: This is Day One