In light of my pending 44th birthday around the corner I can honestly say I'm not only fully content, I feel great and very blessed.
In 2016 I attend my oldest of 5 children graduation and his starting college. I enrolled my youngest in preschool, Attend field trips and plenty of dance parties with my little ladies. I have attend numerous football games my son has played and witnessed his freshman high school year, his achievement of straight A's in all honor classes.
I graduated to blood tests every six months and have never felt healthier. I am a firm believer that we are more youthful, with modern medicine. Sixty is the new forty and forty is the new thirty. Between my kids attending college, high school, elementary, and preschool, they are growing and aging however I am not! Ha Ha..
I am fastly approaching my 3rd year anniversary of my health restored and being cancer free.
When I was told in early July 2014 by a physician that the lump in my right breast felt like a cyst and would certainly be benign and nothing to worry about (wrote it on a note for my husband) needless to say I went by myself for a mammogram to have a look at "my cyst". I had four that day that showed nothing, even tho you could feel the large tumor the mamo did not detect it. First lesson of many starting my journey. I was taken to an ultra sound room, and had a biopsy and had no need to wait on the results over that weekend. As the biopsy was taking place I had small markers inserted into my breast over the tumor and told "they are to guide the surgeon".
The following week I meet my surgeon who informed me I had stage 3 TNBC and must have chemo first then surgery. At that moment I had a very personal choice to make. I could throw a pity party, be negative, scared, angry, have a can't do attitude or a million other negative emotions or I could FIGHT!
I am often asked how I conquered stage 3 and am I scared cancer will return.
At that moment I knew to my core I was not going to allow breast cancer to slow me down, steal my happiness, or my life. I thought, whatever it takes to get this off my plate the fastest and easiest way so my life could resume to normal. I simply was never going to entertain any gloom or doom or negativity.
"Courage is not the absence of fear, it's the conquest of it!"
A positive attitude and mindset is over 80% of any battle won in life!
After my bilateral (best decision I ever made) I had a complete pathological response. No micro cells found, I was spared radiation and given an excellent prognoses.
What happens when you mix Iron and Carbon, it makes STEEL.....When faced with any of life's challenges, when you prevail and arrive at the other end you become STEEL...
After my achievement in restoring my health my journey has enhanced my life, my opinions, views, values the way I live and I am positively forever changed.
It is important for my pink sisters of TNBC to remember it has many Positives outcomes!
It is imperative we remember TNBC is a very survivable disease and unlike Her 2 positive our risk margins mirror closely then drop considerably in 3 years. In 5 years I'm told by an oncologist the risk is a 2% over my entire life span (so divide 30-40 remaining years into 2% and it is almost untraceable. In light of those who don't consider TNBC to be cured, many oncologist would disagree. Your risk are greater to have a unforeseen life event (car accident for example) than a recurrence after 5 years.
I also would like to add , I have the privilege to personaly know three remarkably strong stage IV women who are thriving years later with stable disease, living a high quality life of normalcy and 21st century treatments and medications are enabling them to watch their children grow .
TNBC is very chemo-sensitive and the majority of patients confronted with and treated for TNBC will never relapse.
TNBCs had excellent outcomes even in the absence of adjuvant chemotherapy, and on reviewing the literature they found a 3% breast cancer specific death rate and frequently carry a good prognosis
High radiosensitivy was suggested (7% of the patients had a complete response during chemotherapy had no effect on the rate of recurrence or survival (6-year local recurrence-free survival, metastasis-free survival, and survival rates were 86%, 83%, and 83%, respectively.TNBC is more sensitive to chemotherapy. The rate of pathological complete remission (PCR) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy is higher than in other breast cancer subtypes
I also would like to add , I have the privilege to personaly know three remarkably strong stage IV women who are thriving years later with stable disease, living a high quality life of normalcy and 21st century treatments and medications are enabling them to watch their children grow .
TNBC is very chemo-sensitive and the majority of patients confronted with and treated for TNBC will never relapse.
TNBCs had excellent outcomes even in the absence of adjuvant chemotherapy, and on reviewing the literature they found a 3% breast cancer specific death rate and frequently carry a good prognosis
High radiosensitivy was suggested (7% of the patients had a complete response during chemotherapy had no effect on the rate of recurrence or survival (6-year local recurrence-free survival, metastasis-free survival, and survival rates were 86%, 83%, and 83%, respectively.TNBC is more sensitive to chemotherapy. The rate of pathological complete remission (PCR) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy is higher than in other breast cancer subtypes
Although it sounds frightening, the fast growth rate means that standard chemotherapy's have a good chance of inducing remission.TNBC has a much better response to conventional chemotherapy than other breast cancer subtypes. It’s important to remember that most people with TNBC don’t have a metastatic recurrence.The risk of recurrence drops significantly in 3 years, when a woman survives five years without a recurrence, her chances of survival are extremely high.. A woman who has been successfully treated for TNBC and is disease-free 5 or more years has almost no risk of having the cancer come back. I think the message is triple negative breast cancer accounts for between 10 to 15 percent of all breast cancers. We haven't solved this problem yet, but it's also not a death sentence. The majority of women with triple negative breast cancers are -- thankfully -- cured and survive. Triple negative cancer is something that if it has not come back by the five-year mark, you are almost certainly are cured of it. Most women with triple-negative breast cancer never have a metastatic recurrence or a new cancer.After 3 years the chance of recurrence of TNBC is reduced by 50%. With each year after the 3 year mark the chance of recurrence is reduced by an additional 10%-15%. Long term survivors (longer than 5 years) have almost a 0% rate that the disease will recur. With other breast cancers the recurrence rate climbs after the first 5 years. (You have a 90.6% to not have metastasis)
It is true that hormone-negative breast cancers can be more aggressive than hormone-positive. But the majority of women who get the disease survive.
Many women with TNBC have no positive nodes—and, if they do, they still beat the disease and survive.
We truly have no control over random life events.... The only real control we have is remaining positive, and how we behave ourselves and treat others!
God is good everyday!
My prayers are with all less fortunate and all battling this disease.
Positive thoughts are always with my pink sisters and your families! You too can prevail and there is a bright shinning light at the end of the tunnel. Live life!
A few pictures of 2016 highlights! 
