My Decade Review

New Decade New Year New Me?

Did you do a decade review? Did you look at the positive? Always look at the positive!

Many folks have been going back over the last decade and listing the good and the bad for their followers. I had no inclination to do this decade review until I realized the following:

Ten Years Ago:

I was in cancer treatment. It began in late Sept 09 when I was diagnosed and would continue for the next 2.5 years. January of 2010 I was in between chemo 2 and 3. 13 Surgeries, side effects, 6 rounds of chemo, 18 rounds of herceptin, 5 years of tamoxifen, medicine both liquid and pill form, further cancer scares which were nothing but led to more surgeries and worry, complications from reconstructive surgery which lead to 6 of those. And I need to have one more. As well as Valley fever, pneumonia, mris, X-rays, pet scans, etc.
Our insurance was raised every time I paid it—doubled every quarter until ACA came in—we went from 15k for a family of 4 with a 5k deductible to what would have been 42,500 plus a 5000 deductible if not for ACA. The insult to my injury? My savings went to insurance, things that weren’t covered, bras(when you have 5 reconstruction surgeries plus fills you keep buying them), etc.

November 2010-the three most important people in my life

BUT ALSO:

I Spent 10 more years married to my incredible husband
Got to be here to watch our daughters grow from 7 and 11 to 17 and 21(now 22)
Got to be at weddings, graduations, move our oldest to college, watch both blossom into incredible humans,
enjoy their friends, enjoy and appreciate my friends(talking to all my friends out there—the new ones and the ones who stood by my side.
I got to support our daughters through things that were difficult, changes of school, friends who turned out to not be friends, a bad concussion from a car accident.
Got to meet the new babies born, boyfriends past and present,
Spent 10 more years with my favorite dog ever.
Got into the best health of my life. The strongest I have been and finally in the past 7 months I lost the chemo weight.
I got to see myself with all sorts of different hair lengths.

Skip over the hair pics if you like—

This was cute but still got called “Sir”

shorter than I wanted but about 6 months later I liked it(can’t find a pic of my favorite)

It went kind of straight for a bit–I was SO CONFUSED!

This was both too long and too short(yes those are my two bffs from Kindergarten)

THE WIG! (don’t let the wig guy cut your wig) Motley Crue and Poison were having auditions but I missed them due to chemo.

Current hair, long, curly, auburn… back to me!

Now Back to Writing!

I also wrote a blog almost every week for the past 10 years,
Wrote 8 drafts of one book , 5 of another, 3 of another and continuing to work on those while researching fresh for one of them.
I got to welcome friends into my life, celebrate the lives of others gone too soon,
I got to rejoice in our home by organizing, cleaning, cooking, decorating and doing a wee bit of construction(that was smart and was around the time I got pneumonia!)
We got to travel, ski, snorkel, go to Ireland, Spain and Portugal
I raised over 30,000 dollars for the Revlon run walk which funded one of the medicines that saved my life.
I taught over 500 girls and women the importance of and how to do breast self exam and raised money for the get in touch foundation along with awareness of their program co chairing two events.
I taught at the Dallas Fort Worth Writers conference and I taught 5th and 6th grade literature and creative writing at a local school. I guest lectured at Pepperdine and other schools.

It was an awesome decade.

It started a bit rough but ended really really well. The years have been awesome all in all.

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade!

May we all find our bliss and the energy to enjoy it!

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