Erika
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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.
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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.
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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.