Soulful Sunflower

  Hi, it’s me, Soulful Sunflower🌻 it’s lovely breast cancer awareness month and here I am. Basically should be the poster child, because while I’m getting scans they found some cancer.  I want to share my journey on how we got here. It may make you frustrated with our healthcare system, but it needs to be shared.  When I moved to Tucson I was able to get my normal vaginal ultrasound since I am high risk for ovarian cancer and a mammogram. As usual everything came back normal. After that I was looking for an oncology doctor to follow me because of my BRCA-1. I had my training for my job in March. So I scheduled all of my doctors appts after training. Well as we all like to say 2020 is every curse word in the book, Covid made all my tests move back. I didn’t get a mammogram until June, which mind you- came back clean. Ladies, if you are high-risk a mammogram is not enough, and if you are not high risk, but feel like YOU need more testing, please pay out of pocket for a MRI...

 Hi! It’s me Soulful sunflower! 🌻 I will do my best at being positive, but I am JUST SO confused. My heart is heavy. My stomach is in my throat and everything I know about cancer, and was taught in school or taught by my company, it’s almost like the rules don’t apply to me. Eat food they say, how do you eat when you feel sick? Drink your water they say and stay hydrated? I want to barf, how on earth do I think water is going to stay down? The thing is my background in nutrition- I know better, but that doesn’t make this easier.  For as long as I can remember I use to want to do a Ted Talk. I don’t love public speaking but I grew addicted to having a story that made me feel a connection to so many people and I love connecting. Getting and giving people the Goosebumps is literally my favorite thing in the world. Well, I guess one more thing to add to my resume and Ted talk. People have told me since my mom I’m a warrior, because they aren’t sure how they would do if they lost ...

 Hi, it’s me- your soulful sunflower again🌻 Oh what a night! Happy early birthday dad!!! I’m sorry we aren’t celebrating exactly how you initially planned. I always like to steal the show apparently!  First off, I want to say thank you to my dad and step mom. They just drove 2500 miles to get here to spend time to take care of me, like get out of here- that is soo kind and sounds pretty stressful. My dad was pretty nervous about flying right now, so they decided to take a trip. I know my dad probably won’t say a whole lot about my situation, but I know it triggers him too for everything we went through with my mom. Having this gene definitely always has you looking over your shoulder. I’m very grateful to have family that will stop what they are doing spend a lot of time to come out and make sure I am well taken care of. This won’t even be the last surgery. So they will need to come back and help me at least once and maybe twice. Once again, the word I think sums it all up is...

Hi, it’s your daily dose of soulful sunflower🌻  I want to post a picture of my mom today, because well she is just the most amazing guardian angel. I truly believe this mass they found on my breast is a blessing in disguise. I mean, I was on my way to looking into fertility, getting Pelvis And Breast MRI’s and going to freeze my eggs before this thing on my left breast put a damper on everything. But like I said, blessing.. maybe this was the moment, that if I took any longer in deciding whether or not to remove my breasts, could have been life changing. Ultimately I’m thankful, this all needed to be done and I was basically dragging my feet.. I want to share a bit about my support system. It’s not everyday people walk into your life and say “ I am NOT, and will not go anywhere!”  I don’t want anyone to feel slighted by this blog post, as I said previously there are SO many people out there that would do anything for me and vice versa, even if we haven’t spoken in years. ...

It’s me again, I’m sure that gets old, but it feels weird to just start writing without saying Hello... can you tell I’m a first time blogger/ writer?? Nah, me neither 😂😂 I mean at least a few people have read it. Wayyyy more than I thought would. Haha :) so thank you !!   I don’t want to complain about covid, because well it brought some of my relationships closer. But having to isolate prior to surgery, has somehow made me exhausted. Or brought out more emotions. My body is definitely having some weird outer body experience to say the least. My mind is SO ready for this surgery and prepared for whatever is thrown at me but my body is tired. A lot of this triggers what I watched and went through as my mom was sick. I was so sad, and stressed and anxious. I loved my mom so much, and I always say I lost the best part of me. She was that person who was so quirky it was cute and funny. She was so generous and kind and so authentic. We loved doing coffee talks and just laughing ...

 Hi, it’s me again, soulful sunflower here. Tomorrow is the day I go in for covid testing as they require 6 days of covid isolation. Luckily I am still able to get 99% of my job done from home under these circumstances.  Today I wanted to write about reflecting. I feel like sharing what has happened a bit since my mom passed away what will be 7 years on thanksgiving 2020. I was 27, not married, didn’t have much passion in my life, and well, I went down a dark path. I felt like things in my immediate family weren’t handled appropriately (don’t worry thin gs have since then been worked on) but the point of this, is we all go through seasons. When my mom passed, my season was dark. I didn’t connect well with others, I lost my spark, I just didn’t care about anything. My relationships were suffering, I was suffering and I couldn’t see the light. Fast forward to leaving Chicago and moving back to Colorado to start a new journey in nutrition. I stopped crying myself to sleep, I stop...

 Hi, it’s me again.. Soulful Sunflower.. I guess I can just go ahead and explain the name. My mom, Phyllis, aka my soulmate... she passed away 7 years ago , and sunflowers were her favorite!! I now absolutely LOVE love love sunflowers. They brighten any room, and now everyone that knows me when they see sunflowers they send me pics. It’s basically my mom saying hello Jessie. Just like when I get front row parking, I say thanks MOM!  Lately things have been really crazy for me. My dad and my step mom are driving out from Florida to help take care of me for the first surgery. They live in Florida and I live in Arizona. If anyone knows my dad, he is NOT a road trip kind of guy. So I can only imagine how that drive is going.. Oh yeah, flat tire two hours into the drive. OYE. I am really grateful they are coming as I have NO idea how long my recovery will be.  Today I went to FedEx to ship stuff for work, and I was telling my favorite staff member that I am going out on medica...