Tougher Than TWOmurs

It’s been a while… and a lot has happened since I last blogged.

For one, in 2020 I completed five years of tamoxifen, to the day, and was pumped to toss my medication in the trash and start living again. I even let myself dream of meeting someone new and starting a family.

I met a lot of “someones,” but I didn’t become a mommy… I became a Mimi. A full-time Auntie Mimi to so many amazing kids in my life. And because their parents are either family or my closest friends, I’m Mimi to pretty much everyone. I’m still the same Mary, but Mimi is a little more patient, a little more experienced and a little more balanced.

When I started Tougher Than TWOmurs in 2015, it was mainly because I had a lot of life and health updates to share with a lot of people who I love and who love me. So I decided to blog about it because I knew my news was going to break a lot of hearts, cause a lot of worry and cause a lot of questions. And it was tough enough to live through than to relive by having to tell person by person for the unforeseen future. I thought it would be easier to lay it all out there, real and raw, so my tough updates wouldn’t have to rely on word of mouth.

Really, I wanted people to realize that for me, life has pretty much always been about survival. And that hasn’t changed a bit.

Most people in my life knew I was a childhood cancer survivor, but I’d been cancer-free for 17 years and was seemingly crushing life. I had a dream job, dream man, big plans and things were mostly looking up. Then, almost out of nowhere, my boyfriend and I split up after five years and a few days later while he was packing his things, I learned I had breast cancer.

2023 marks the 25th anniversary of my first cancer diagnosis. Now in my 40s, I’ve battled cancer and its effects for the majority of my life.

Sharing my crazy “you can’t even make this shit up” stories with you, in my own words, is something I never expected would have the effect it has on me and others. Almost a decade later, I’m still so proud I started writing to you, and only sorry it’s taken me this long to come back.

Living in survival mode has made for some really wild blog content, but as new diagnoses came about, so did PTSD and severe depression. I needed to go inside myself and take a break from acting off adrenaline in the face of force, controversy and setbacks.

And it worked. I’m finally ready to share the latest chapters. And I got emotional typing that and really meaning it.

But be forewarned – the stories don’t get any easier… they get wilder, at times jaw-dropping and there were months when it was difficult to put my fingers to the keys and type what needs to be typed. But when I’m so riled up from my health being threatened, here I come… my fingers fly.

Like always, I hope they give you a glimpse into my personal experiences, which sadly will probably also sound familiar to other cancer survivors out there who might read this.