I remember what it felt like when I took my first light hike. I had to admit, it wasn't just elevation, then.  "I guess I'm not as normal as I thought," I huffed. It bothered me to recognize that chemo was still affecting me, when I thought I was all "healed."
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​Last week, we started our drive west and detoured, for a hike in Oklahoma. Not exactly a challenging elevation, but it was over 8 miles and steep and rocky at times. It felt good to suddenly say, "Now, I'm myself again!"

​June 18, 2016 & June 18, 2017
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​This morning, Don and I woke early and hiked on a trail outside of Breckenridge. The trail began with stone steps and we laughed at the rustic stair master.

I don't know, but I kind of like the whimsical look of the balls (with people inside) floating on Maggie Pond, outside of our hotel. We'll see.
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But I couldn't see a change at all! I tried the next day with a more generous amount. Forget it. 

​Looking Forlorn
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​I look a little sad in this photo yesterday. I was really just snapping a "before" photo. I was excited to have Christina guide me with some options for color and to give me a tiny bit of a trim. 

 My gray is gone for now. I wish I'd felt content enough to keep it, but I was so ready for a change. I'm going to enjoy this for a while.
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It was my 6 month follow up after radiation ended. I was sort of surprised when I was told no follow up appointment was needed. I was done. That was a nice and odd feeling.

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I checked out and asked the nurse if she knew of a good place to donate cancer related books and magazines. I wanted to share some of the things that had been helpful to me. She showed me their basket and I filled it. ​At the last moment I decided to add the little bear to the basket. The stuffed Care Bear had been a gift and I had planned on passing it along at some point.

Suddenly this seemed like the perfect place. When I tucked the bear in next to the books, I heard a voice behind me. I turned saw this dear woman smiling and pointing at the bear. "Would you like it?" I asked. She grinned and nodded. I wasn't sure how well the woman understood English, but I tried to explain that I wanted her to have the gift that I had received. She couldn't thank me enough. I told her I would share the photo with Bonnie, who sent the bear to me. And I did.

So today, I passed my final exam. This impromptu bear adoption brought perfect closure to my year!
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But my friend, Terri enlightened me. We met up for an event on Friday.

Healing Through Art

​Friday morning Terri texted, "Want to check this out?" I thought she was kidding, since we both share the same reluctance about flaunting our Cancer Survivor status.

We slapped on our name tags and Terri turned to greet me, with only a hint of smile. "Hi, my name is Survivor."  We sat at a round table and introduced ourselves to 2 others, before using our gift pens to write our real names.

A while later, the young man's smooth voice began to sing, a hymn like piece, about Jesus guiding us with our disease... or something of that sort. Suddenly, I really felt like I was in church and I was 13, trying to keep from looking at my friend, to avoid giggles. This is serious.  I reminded myself. I sobered myself by studying the table decoration. A paint can with flowers and paint brushes. That was cute.

It felt like we were the bad Girl Scouts... too cool for school. But we headed over and stood up tall and smiled through the big white frame. I'm glad to have a picture of me with my buddy, who paved the way in this breast cancer thing. We clicked years ago, before cancer. We connected through art programs and now we connect even more because of our common experience.    

Before rushing out, Terri and I did join in with the group photo. We left, chuckling and shaking our heads. Our meet up with other Cancer Survivors shouldn't have been a hard thing to process.  But we both drove home through rain, feeling a little confused. I got a text later saying, "I think we're just closet survivors."  I think we are.  I'm not sure how much of my reluctance is with the word survivor and how much is about being labeled anything at all. But we're planning to work on this together.  We'll see if these Closet Survivors come out.