Category: Uncategorized

Happy Nurses Day

by Tammy Myers

  
I just wanted to give a VERY BIG shout out to all of the amazing nurses out there who are selflessly dedicating their lives to helping others. 

Thank you for holding our hands when we face the unthinkable, for caring for us in ways that we never thought we needed, and for listening when no one else understands. Thank you for taking the time to teach and inspire when our worlds seem to be spinning out of control, for showing compassion when the fear and the sadness takes over, for motivating us to reach goals that seem unreachable, and for cheering us on when every step along the way. Thank you for taking the time to truly get to know us, and for knowing when to be tough, but also when to be human. Thank you for making us smile when the weight of the world is on our shoulders, for investing a little bit of yourselves in to each us, but most of all thank you for all that you are and all that you do! The world just wouldn’t be the same without you. 

To be real…. I don’t know where patients like me, would be, without amazing people like you caring for us during our hardest moments. From a slightly biased standpoint, I have to say that I have been blessed to have the VERY BEST nurses caring for me over the past year as I faced the awful “C”, but to be fair I have never met a nurse who wasn’t willing to go above and beyond for my care… and for that, I will be forever grateful. 

Happy Nurse’s Day to all of the amazing nurses out there!

-Tammy 

#Mypersonalpinktime

We Won!

by Tammy Myers

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I am happy to announce that Josh Reed and the My Personal Pink Time video took home an Eclipse Award and the honor of being named “Best Documentary” last night at the Ellipse Awards Ceremony.

I caked on the healthy looking makeup and left equipped with both nausea and pain medication, but I was not going to miss an opportunity to celebrate Josh and this honor with my hubby, and Josh’s beautiful wife Erin.

I have to be honest, I had combed through every second and every detail of my video for months so it had kind of lost its emotional effect on me. However, in that moment, I for the first time unintentionally stepped outside myself long enough to actually see the impact that the collaboration of Sam’s emotional images, my words, and Josh’s amazing video skills were having having on others.

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Pain and Worry

by Tammy Myers

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It has been a pretty rough few days physically, painfully and emotionally, and to be honest after feeling nauseous and struggling to eat or drink for the past few days post surgery, I am very weak, vomiting and constantly on the verge of passing out. It was a struggle because although I knew I needed to be seen, and I knew I really needed some fluids to get me back to a good place, I didn’t really know which, out of all of my specialists was best to call. Do I call my oncologist who has treated every condition for the past year, my cardiologist who knows of my cardio conditions but is unaware of how cancer exasperates them, do I call the surgeon who saw me last a few days ago in the hospital or do I call my general family practice doc?

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The call I was waiting for

by Tammy Myers

I finally got the call! The small lesion previously seen on my liver is NOT cancer! In fact, my oncology nurse mentioned that the reports indicate my liver looks pretty normal, so other then some gall stones I’m looking pretty good inside. Still not sure what it is/was or why my levels have remained elevated but today… I am happy just knowing IT IS NOT CANCER! I’m celebrating with 2 bags of fluids and a chi-latte!

Thank you to all of you for your kind words of encouragement, your thoughts, your prayers, and your well wishes over the past few days. It’s been a hard few weeks all the way around, but having this huge weight lifted off my shoulders should at least mean more sleep and healing in my near future.

They say it takes an army to get someone through cancer and let me tell you, I feel like I have one heck of an army in all of you. I am blessed to have your support.

‪#‎mypersonalpinktime‬ ‪#‎thecancerisnotback‬

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Still no news…..

by Tammy Myers

I cannot thank you all enough for all the caring, loving, and encouraging support and prayers you have sent my way in texts, messages, and posts. I am still going through them all but I do feel the love, so thank you so very much. I have been distracting myself with work while getting nice and hydrated at the LH infusion center and I am starting to feel a little better and more with it.

On a much needed funny note. The nurse who checked me in for my CT scan this morning slapped this bright yellow fall risk bracelet on me while putting my normal medical wrist band on and I didn’t even notice until an hour ago while sitting at infusion. Who gets a fall risk bracelet for a CT scan? Yep, I do. No wonder my scan nurse requested I be taken up stairs to the infusion center by wheelchair. I guess I have gotten all too used to seeing this pretty little wrist accessory. It is the hottest in trends 😀13051558_932191720235925_7028392533221483197_n

A Year of Transformation and Growth

by Tammy Myers

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Facebook reminded me that this image of Corryn and I was posted exactly one year ago today. My sister Kate Lockwood was in town helping me to recover from my second emergency surgery. The surgery that took what I had left of my right breast. Everyone who loved me was starting to realize that I really did in deed have cancer and most importantly they were starting to realize just how serious and scary my situation was. Where I was starting to see how important it was that I document special moments for my daughter to have and to remember me by. I know I have said it before, but when you are first told that you have cancer, the only thing that runs through your mind is that you are going to die. In a lot of cases this is scary and consuming, but if you are a mom of a young child, you immediately start to plan for a life for your child/children and husband without you in it. What it is you can do now, what you can do to prepare them, and what you can do to make things easier on them when they do face life without you in it.

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Today Marks One Year Since My Bilateral Mastectomy

by Tammy Myers

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One year ago at about this exact moment in time, I was being wheeled off to the first of many scary surgeries. Today was the day that I officially said goodbye to my breasts and to my body, as I had always known it. But today was also the day that I was forced to say hello to a life with cancer. I didn’t know it at the time, but today was going to be a very pivotal day in my breast cancer journey and will most likely be a day that I always remember. Looking back through the photos, I am realizing that I no longer know the young, shy, and naive woman that I am seeing. I am grateful and even somewhat proud of how strong I was in what I now know to be very scary moments, but I am also astonished at how clueless I really was about what was heading my way, which may have been a tiny blessing as well.

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Officially home

by admin

So we are officially on our way home from the airport and I see this on Facebook. No offense to my favorite person, but I think Ellen may have been a little tired or even a bit hung over after the Grammys. Don’t get me wrong, Tuesday’s show was awesome. I mean really, I got to see Ellen and the sexiest dad alive up close. But as I sit here laughing my butt off I’m realizing that Ellen was far more serious then she typically is when I was there. So in a completely grateful and appreciative way, I must say that the stars aligned for me to get tickets to Ellen’s show on the one year anniversary of the first day I was told I had cancer, which still gives me the chills, but they might have aligned a tad bit incorrectly. I think I was supposed to be at this show that was taped on the 17th, the one year anniversary of my biopsy (which could be argued as the actual day I was diagnosed smile emoticon, not only to see Adele and make both of my goals for 2016 come true, but also to see Ellen doing something so funny that not even she couldn’t hold it together. My stomach hurts I’m laughing so hard. I love Ellen.
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‪#‎mypersonalpinktime‬
#‎ellenandadeleprankjambajuice‬

Ellen here we come: A Journey 5 Years in the Making

by admin

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Have you ever had a moment where it seems like the entire universe aligned around you and something that you really wanted to happen but never thought was possible…. actually happened? It doesn’t seem real yet, but this is happening to me. As most of you know my journey with breast cancer really started when my Aunt Pam was diagnosed and lost her battle when I was in high school. Not many people know this, but when she passed away, I made a promise to myself and to her that I would someday honor her by getting involved with the cause. I did a few awareness campaigns while I was in college, but I didn’t really feel like I was making a difference until 2011, when Vicki and I came together to create a campaign to nominate Vicki to be a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres show and fulfill her wish to share her breast cancer story with the world. Since Vicki had referred to her time with breast cancer as her “pink time” we decided to create a “pink time” facebook page to rally support for her wish. “Pink Time” first became the reference used when discussing her journey with Family and Friends. As well, being the reference to the singer “PINK” whose music provided courage and strength while the chemo drugs were being pumped into her body. Our efforts weren’t enough to get Vicki on the show that October, but a very beautiful friendship was born between the two of us.

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taking my life back

by admin

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What does the phase “taking my life back” really mean to someone who has or is facing Cancer

This is actually a post that I wrote most of, this past summer and couldn’t bring myself to post until I found it again overtaking my thought process.

So here’s some truth. The phrase “I cannot wait to take my life back, doesn’t mean exactly what you think it does, or there is at least a whole lot more to it then you think. As a breast cancer patient, we don’t really have to tell you about the obvious things that we are longing to put behind us, like wanting to have hair again, wanting to spend less time at the hospital or at doctors visits, being able to raise our arms above our head again, being able to plan for things without taking future surgeries and hospital stays into account, having two breasts, being able to buy an age-appropriate bra outside of a mastectomy fitting room at the cancer center, and most of all being able to play with your child without feeling winded, overcome with exhaustion, pain, shortness of breath, or fatigue. The truth is some of this will get better in time, and some of it won’t, but when I say that I cannot wait to take my life back, I mean so much more then all this.

The honest and real truth is that the hardest parts to “take back” so to speak, are most often the parts that we choose not to tell anyone about. Like the fact that you completely lose the ability to relate to “normal people” including your family and your closest friends, that you really no longer know how to have fun because you find it really hard to separate yourself from the new fear-based cancer version of yourself, and most importantly that you feel extremely isolated and alone at times even when you have the biggest support system and you are surrounded by family and friends that love you, because it’s not possible for others to understand where you are at mentally and emotionally unless they have been there themselves.

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