Erika
At 25, I thought I was invincible. I started chasing my dreams, I was on my parents insurance and I trusted that food was my medicine. The previous year, I quit my corporate job to start my own business meal prepping, working for Lululemon and pursuing my 200 HR Yoga Teacher Training Certification. I got to travel to beachy places then landed a job as an assistant for the most hardworking badass real estate team in Nashville and quickly retested to activate my real estate license. I was teaching yoga, meal prepping for clients, and selling houses - all with my green smoothie in hand.
I quickly learned life isn't as easy or perfect as Instagram makes it out to be. The stress of everything I was doing and financial stress of my new endeavours started keeping me up at night and then so did the pain. Pain I wrote off as normal wear and tear from years of playing soccer. As an athlete, I came from a mindset of, "you'll have to carry my beat up body off this field before I raise my hand to be taken off on my own because something hurts." A mentality I learned was very unhealthy and got me into some trouble. A lump I noticed, but told myself I was gaining weight from not doing as much yoga and stress eating. A lump I was “too busy” to go to the doctors for.
Then life made me make time and handed me some "that could never happen to me" kind of news. I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer that advanced to my lymph node, liver, spine, hip and eventually into my sacrum. The “odds” weren’t in my favor according to statistics for my terminal disease.
After being diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer that metastasized to my lymph node, liver, spine, hip and eventually my sacrum. I had so many regrets of not making more time for my friends, family and experiences. I learned work will always be there, but I was done letting life pass me by. I've spent these past 6 months unable to work and despite everyone's fears, driving to see all my friends and eat all my favorite plant food. I've spent these past 6 months LIVING. It shouldn't take a diagnosis to start living, for me it did and I'm beyond grateful that today I can sit here writing this article to create awareness and say I'm NED (no evidence of disease.) I'll have to continue treatment every 3 weeks to keep my cancer at bay. While treatment every 3 weeks for the rest of my life sounded like the end of the world at first, I am keeping my spirits high, putting my health first and LIVING my best life.
