Corean Foley

Survivor

MY TRUTH…I use to think a “Breast cancer survivor” was a woman who had breast cancer and did not die from it. Boy was I wrong! “Survivor” doesn’t give justice to what it is we really overcome. It’s more than just “not dying”. It’s about surviving the mental abuse that cancer will put you through everyday, it’s about surviving the emotional abuse that cancer will make sure you endure day in and day out, it’s about surviving while everything you know about yourself is know longer there and you have to figure out who the new you is, it’s about surviving through every surgery that is slowly taking away bits and pieces of your body, some having their breast removed, ovaries removed and put on hormone therapy to stop the estrogen in which fuels their cancer, leaving them with the question “If you take all of that, what says I’m a woman?” Being a survivor is the moment we are handed the pen in which our oncologist gives us and we place our signature before we are given chemotherapy saying that we understand that chemo will kill some of us. For me, being a breast cancer survivor may not have anything to do with whether I survive or not but more about because of the fight in which I’m fighting today hopefully gives my children and your children a chance to never have to try and survive through breast cancer because we already fought the fight for them