It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. 20 years since I created that t-shirt that changed my life...and ended up SAVING LIVES. In honor of this major milestone, won't you please consider donating to support Feel Your Boobies so that we can continue our important outreach and education that targets young women. YOUNG WOMEN DO GET BREAST CANCER.

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In honor of this milestone, I wrote a blog post. ENJOY :-)

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I remember when I was younger and I’d hear people say things like “I’ve been friends with her for 20 years” or “That was 20 years ago” and I remember thinking…oh man, they are OLD! I couldn’t imagine being at a point in my life when I would say something like that. Old enough that I could reflect on the previous 20 years and talk about it like it was a blip in time.

Yet here I am. Celebrating 20 years from my breast cancer diagnosis - remembering that scary day when I heard the words “You have breast cancer.” On some days it feels like a distant memory, almost like it was a lifetime ago. Yet on other days, and always on my anniversary date, it feels like it was yesterday and it still evokes a sense of fear that takes me back.

There really is nothing like receiving a life changing or life threatening diagnosis like breast cancer. It creates a line in your life that forever becomes a mark in time. A mark in time that causes you to start to refer to things in a “before” or “after” type of way. I still find myself saying “that was before my diagnosis” or “that happened after I had breast cancer.” Not dissimilar from how we might all feel about the pandemic. It’s almost as if something that life changing resets time.

The past 20 years have been a gift. I remember wondering if I’d ever get here. I’d look at other women as they celebrated their 20th breast cancer anniversaries and would hope that I too would someday enjoy the wisdom that those years allowed them to gain. Their age inspired me, their wrinkles looked beautiful, and to me they represented hope. 

So as I reflect on all of the memories, milestones, victories, and losses I’ve experienced over the past 20 years I continue to land on one word that summarizes how I feel on this anniversary date - GRATEFUL. I have so much to be grateful for and much of the gratitude I feel relates to the feeling of purpose and passion that Feel Your Boobies has afforded me. Breast cancer made that possible and for that I am forever grateful. 

I am alive. 

Feel Your Boobies is alive. 

And, thanks to our campaign, there are many other women still alive doing all kinds of wonderful things in the world. 

I can think of nothing more gratifying than that.