A Tough Cookie

Well today's the last day of the year and I've had plenty of time to reflect.  On December 31, 2013 while preparing for the entrance of the new year a preacher spoke the words, "Greater Things in 2014".  Those words would become my motto for the new year.  As the year started, greater things were happening.  Then April happened.  April 16, 2014, a Tough Cookie was born.  This was the day I was diagnosed with Triple Negative breast cancer.   I was told that I would only need 6 rounds of chemo, 1 round every 3 weeks.  Then I'd have surgery and reconstruction.  Well...  That's not quite how it happened.  Here's a recap.

April 3rd - Suspicious Cells Found

April 16th - Diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer ( A Tough Cookie is  Born)

September 12th - Four Months of Chemo, the Tumor Triples in Size and Spreads to the Lymph Nodes

September 22nd - A New Journey Begins with MD Anderson Houston

November 6th - Mastectomy Surgery

November 20th - Cancer Found in the Chest Muscle

December 9th - A Second Surgery to Remove Cancer from my Chest Muscle

December 18th - At My Follow-up Appointment I Find Out that I'm not Cancer Free (I wrote on the board in my hospital room after surgery on December 9th that I was cancer free)

December 31st - My coworker comes in with a cookie.  He said that they gave him an extra and he decided to share it with me.  While sitting at my desk, he says, "Oh by the way that's a tough cookie!"  We laughed because I knew this would inspire my last entry for 2014.  

I took the cookie out of the bag and it was indeed a tough cookie.  I had to apply pressure to break the cookie.  That's what we experience daily, pressure!  Life has a way of trying to break you.  And once I broke off a piece of the cookie and tasted it, I realized that the ingredients that are required to make it taste good hadn't been affected.  You see, despite all that I've been through.  The ingredients that were there when you started this journey with me in April are still there.  I'm still hopeful.  I'm still grateful.  I still believe that I'm going to be healed.  I still believe that Jesus is going to turn this around for my good.  I'm still me!  Nothing can change that.  I may not feel upbeat and uplifted everyday but, that doesn't mean that it's not in me.

Greater things may have not happened in 2014.  So here's to Greater Things in 2015!!!!

Happy New Year #TeamToughCookie!!!  You all have played a major role in how I've made it thus far.  Thank you for all that you've done for me and my family.  I love y'all!

#atoughcookiechronicles
#teamtoughcookie
#greaterthingsin2015
#idon'tlooklikewhati'vebeenthrough


If you need someone to talk to, feel free to shoot me an email at atoughcookiechronicles@gmail.com.

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