Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow...

(Wedding planning at the hospital!)


(My favorite nurse Rene. She is in love with Twilight and made my stay at Baylor wonderful)


(Mom excited to walk me around the 7th floor of the hospital to stretch my legs)


Let your soul shine
It’s better than sunshine
It’s better than moonshne
Damn sure better than rain
Yeah now people don’t mind
We all get this way sometimes
Got to let your soul shine
Shine till the break of day


My intentions were to stop bloging before my mastectomy. But, Ryan encouraged me to continue writing because someone out there in the world may need a little inspiration, help, and encouragement during their battle with breast cancer. So, I am still here… blogging away slowly.

My surgery was nearly two weeks ago and Holy Cow. The first week home I was in wonderful spirits and just enjoying life day by day with Ryan, Mom, and Katy taking care of me every second of the day. I had my beautiful flowers smelling up my bed room from loved ones and wedding mags spread out all over the bed and I was just having a blast wedding planning! I had the pain meds and the muscle relaxers to help ease everything. I was feeling fantastic!

(Me wedding planning away last week. Enjoying life)

NOW week 2, I am on ibuprofen and FYI it is NOTHING compared to the good pain meds. I find myself yelling at myself and crying when I cant brush my own teeth, can not get out of bed with out help, and screaming when I lift my arms up on accident. I think I have thrown my toothbrush across the bathroom 5 times because it makes me so upset I cannot brush my teeth by myself. Since my arms suck right now my toothbrush does not go far. It goes about 2 cm in front of me. Ryan helps me put on my pj’s (which I live in right now) and I say “No, Ryan I can put them on by myself” and then I take 5 minutes to TRY to pull my pj bottoms up and start crying “I can not do it please help me”. Luckily, Ryan is patient and lets me try but then is there to rescue me when I figure out I am not able to dress myself. My favorite part about not being able to move is if I fall over on the couch I can not get up. So, today, my mom was sitting beside me on the couch and I fell over, face into my dog Aston’s butt, me screaming help, which the scream triggered my left breast to go into extreme pain (where the stitches are hit nerves and feels like I am being stabbed), and my mom just sitting there laughing because it was kind of funny, and then helping me up.
On my left side I have stitches that are hitting nerves so I literally cannot move my arm away from my side. So when I totally forget if I move my arm in any way, and go to grab something or lift my arm away from my side I scream and cry. The pain drops me to my knees and I just sit on the ground screaming OOOUUUCCCHHH. It is seriously that much pain. But, the doc said that the stitch should dissolve and soon I will have full range of movement in my arm. All I can say is this is freaking stupid and can’t wait till this stitch dissolves. As for my right side, I am doing awesome. Which, to me is nuts because my right side is where my tumor was and where the cancer was living. And I have full range of movement in this arm. I still am unable to move my arm in certain ways but it does not hurt like my left side.

I am such a go, go, go person and having to sit on the couch asking my mom to help me up, to please make me coffee, or to help pull up my own damn pants makes me so mad! Since I had pain meds during week 1, I just did not care and was happy. But now I am just sitting here watching the days go by waiting till I can go back to work, go back to the gym, and just be me again. The one thing I always try to remember through this whole mess is, this is my life now, and I have to work with it. It may not be the life I want at the moment, but fortunately, I am blessed to have people who love me, a great support system to help me have the best life as possible during this time. So I say to myself “Maegan, stop waiting for your old life to come back and MAKE your life the best life possible right now”. So, that’s my theory on this mess. I have gotten out of the house to go walk around the mall (yesterday) to get some exercise and now today- I feel like I was hit by a truck and my rib cage and chest hurt badly. Ryan and Mom both told me it was a bad idea but I wanted to be super woman and now regret it. :(

I have been to the plastic surgeon once to get my spacers filled up.I also got my tubes taken out of my sides so now I have holes in my sides that wont stop bleeding. Ouch. The holes look like I was poked with a pen. It is a pretty big hole.
I go once a week for a month to get to my desired size (C cup) and then I have to wait 1-2 months to get the real implants in. On my last spacer filler upper- it felt like I could not breathe. The plastic surgeon and nurse both at the same time filled up my breasts at the same time. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest and I could not breathe. My heart was pounding so hard and I just sucked up the pain because I wanted boobs back so badly. In the room while filling up the spacers with Ryan, the nurse and the surgeon I smiled and said “Yeah I am good I can handle this”. As soon as I got in the car with Ryan, I said “Holy shi*t Ryan that was insane and I cant freaking breathe”. So Ryan walked me through a breathing process and over the next 2 days it felt normal again.
I am not sure if I have to get radiation yet. I was supposed to go speak to my oncologist about radiation at the beginning of the week but since the weather was so bad here in TX I had to cancel my appt. (The roads have been iced over and it is freezing!!) Now, my appt is on the 8th and hopefully no radiation is needed!

I am cancer free! Cancer free! I still have so much ahead of me to complete to get back to normal. Every time I look down I see the scars and the damage that cancer has to done to me. It makes me upset and makes me cry that my chest is all torn up. But, life is not easy and I have a story to tell. I was diagnosed with cancer at 24 and kicked it's ass at 25! It has not been easy in any way and sometimes feels like it is getting harder... but the good lord has been blessing me along this hard journey and has held me back in times where I wanted to jump off an over pass. He has given me the strength to get out of bed and fight the day with happiness. He has put people in my life that I would have never met if it were not for cancer. Everyone keeps saying "God is going to bless you when all this is over" But honestly, he has blessed me all along the way and before I was diagnosed. I have one of the biggest blessings of all times and that is being able to be cancer free. I am going to be able to have my life back. And that is the biggest blessing of all. :)

Well, thanks for reading and…fight like a girl