Written by EEW Online Magazine
If you want to know what it means to come through a test with a powerful
testimony, meet 43-year-old Epilepsy and Breast Cancer survivor, Andrea Nugent.
Recently featured in the Miami Herald, CBS News and Women’s Health Magazine, her
triumphant story is one of courage, and turning pain into purpose.
Andrea
was diagnosed with Epilepsy at 27 and at 39, doctors found cancer in Andrea’s
breast, ovary and lymphatic system. She was too sick to care for her then
2-year-old son (now 6), Zachary Nelson. But her large Caribbean family rallied
around her and supported Andrea through her rough ordeal.
She knows
everyone isn’t so fortunate. That’s why through Andrea Nugent’s nonprofit
organization, B.i.o.n.i.c. Girls Inc. (Beauty is Optional: Newer Improved
Changed), she provides free transportation, household cleaning, and more to
breast cancer patients who need help so desperately.
To raise money to
support her wonderful efforts, Andrea has published a children’s book, Mommy is
Still Mommy: Cancer Can't Change That. “Breast cancer is not a death sentence,”
Andrea Nugent told Women’s Health Magazine when asked the one thing she wants
women to know.
She is living proof that the disease can become
inspiration to fuel your life’s purpose. For more information about Andrea visit
www.andreanugent.com
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
What Matters Most In Life?
Someone asked me today what did I find to be the most important and the least important about life, while battling cancer. This was my reply:
Well for me, I was a workaholic and always struggled with work life balance. My son Zach was so young and he would come and want to play and I remember having to often say not right now mommy has to finish this audit. It took me being sick to really put a value on quality family time. What became most important to me was creating memories that my son will always have long after I am gone.
I began recording our conversations so he can remember things we share and my voice. Material things, though never were really important to me became even less important. I lost everything, my health, job, house, car yet I still had everything in God, my family, friends. Most of all God's trust in that He knew that I would know what to do once He healed me. Share His Word and His Love!
I am affectionately known in my family as "The Energizer Bunny," and some people still think I am a workaholic but I definitely now know when to shut it down and put family first. I am so passionate about what I'm doing now it doesn't feel like work any more.
Funny how life's challenges can change your whole perspective in life. What matters today, truly may not matter tomorrow and vice versa. Definitely don't sweat the small stuff. Thanks SK Dixon for inspiring this post. Peace and blessings.
Well for me, I was a workaholic and always struggled with work life balance. My son Zach was so young and he would come and want to play and I remember having to often say not right now mommy has to finish this audit. It took me being sick to really put a value on quality family time. What became most important to me was creating memories that my son will always have long after I am gone.
I began recording our conversations so he can remember things we share and my voice. Material things, though never were really important to me became even less important. I lost everything, my health, job, house, car yet I still had everything in God, my family, friends. Most of all God's trust in that He knew that I would know what to do once He healed me. Share His Word and His Love!
I am affectionately known in my family as "The Energizer Bunny," and some people still think I am a workaholic but I definitely now know when to shut it down and put family first. I am so passionate about what I'm doing now it doesn't feel like work any more.
Funny how life's challenges can change your whole perspective in life. What matters today, truly may not matter tomorrow and vice versa. Definitely don't sweat the small stuff. Thanks SK Dixon for inspiring this post. Peace and blessings.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Facing Your Own Mortality
Hearing the words "You have cancer," can suddenly move an abstract inevitability to a very real possible outcome in the blink of an eye. For many women, such as myself, breast cancer is the first close brush with mortality. Suddenly, one's sense of safety, security and optimism about life and the future is shaken.
Uncertainty seems to dwell at the core of these feelings, and can persist for years to come. Even when there is no recurrence, the fear persists, affecting us in odd ways long after treatment is over. Many women live with the long lasting fear of breast cancer recurrence, the worry that awakens them in the middle of the night before a doctor's appointment, the misery of waiting for test results, fear of being diagnosed with metastatic disease, or when the friend she made during chemo dies of breast cancer.
When treatment ends, the sense of physical compromise that began with diagnosis can begin to resolve, at last. Gradually, the nausea fades and the energy returns. Hair begins to grow back and the surgical scars are beginning to fade. Radiation burns are starting to heal. Doctors start to tell you that it's now time to focus on family and work and getting back to normal now. If only it were that easy. The truth is, many of us find ourselves profoundly changed by our diagnosis and struggling to come to terms with what has happened to us.
We still have questions that remain unanswered, and fears that keep us up at night. Even after hair and fingernails grow back and reconstructive surgery has been completed, we may still be feeling emotionally fragile. Our bodies our psyches are different than they were, and we need time, sometimes lots of time, to make sense of the changes and what they mean to us.
It is the treatments, not the disease that make you sick so naturally an end to treatment can feel like a big step down the road toward feeling well again. Clearly, the end of treatment marks a transition not a closure. For many women, especially those with higher risks of recurrence, breast cancer remains an intimate and ongoing concern. It confronts us in the mirror daily, affects how we feel in our bodies, appears in our dreams and ambushes us as we approach our follow up oncology visits especially before each PET scan.
By far my strongest fear was, now that treatment was over, nothing stood between me and the threat of recurrence. With the end of treatment my family and friends found it to be a cause for celebration, while for me I had mixed feelings.
When we are diagnosed we are suddenly faced with our own mortality, which we might not have given much thought to until then. For a while we are cocooned in a surreal world of doctors
Uncertainty seems to dwell at the core of these feelings, and can persist for years to come. Even when there is no recurrence, the fear persists, affecting us in odd ways long after treatment is over. Many women live with the long lasting fear of breast cancer recurrence, the worry that awakens them in the middle of the night before a doctor's appointment, the misery of waiting for test results, fear of being diagnosed with metastatic disease, or when the friend she made during chemo dies of breast cancer.
When treatment ends, the sense of physical compromise that began with diagnosis can begin to resolve, at last. Gradually, the nausea fades and the energy returns. Hair begins to grow back and the surgical scars are beginning to fade. Radiation burns are starting to heal. Doctors start to tell you that it's now time to focus on family and work and getting back to normal now. If only it were that easy. The truth is, many of us find ourselves profoundly changed by our diagnosis and struggling to come to terms with what has happened to us.
We still have questions that remain unanswered, and fears that keep us up at night. Even after hair and fingernails grow back and reconstructive surgery has been completed, we may still be feeling emotionally fragile. Our bodies our psyches are different than they were, and we need time, sometimes lots of time, to make sense of the changes and what they mean to us.
It is the treatments, not the disease that make you sick so naturally an end to treatment can feel like a big step down the road toward feeling well again. Clearly, the end of treatment marks a transition not a closure. For many women, especially those with higher risks of recurrence, breast cancer remains an intimate and ongoing concern. It confronts us in the mirror daily, affects how we feel in our bodies, appears in our dreams and ambushes us as we approach our follow up oncology visits especially before each PET scan.
By far my strongest fear was, now that treatment was over, nothing stood between me and the threat of recurrence. With the end of treatment my family and friends found it to be a cause for celebration, while for me I had mixed feelings.
When we are diagnosed we are suddenly faced with our own mortality, which we might not have given much thought to until then. For a while we are cocooned in a surreal world of doctors
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Empowerment...the choice is yours
“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and NOT on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.”
– Martha Washington
I know, I know…we can say that this is a way of looking at life that is rooted too much in the way things used to be in the past – or we can say that whoever thinks this way does not know what we are going through.
You see, we can only live our own lives (as much as sometimes we may try to live other people’s as well) and because of this reality, we will never know how truly bad (or good) other people may have it. Remember what we project to the world is usually “the tip of the iceberg” – where the bulk of the reality is hidden from view.
So, when we look at this week’s empowering quote, we must forget about the rest of the world and think only of ourselves and our reality – because this is where we DO have the power of choice in how we look at things.
I will share this – it is way more difficult and a lot more work to always be looking at the positive side of things and be looking for and at opportunities – nonetheless, no one said that a life worth living was an easy life.
So, choose to be empowered this week and always be looking at the upside of everything that happens in your life. Sometimes it is very difficult to find the upside but we both know that in doing it this way, we will be able to discover our true strengths and because of it, the opportunities that others will miss … those opportunities that will allow us to leave a legacy; to be strong in navigating uncharted waters when others think it can’t be done; to be true to delivering on our responsibility to do the best we can to give the best of ourselves to this world … and in doing so achieve levels of success that we could never have imagined.
Make the choice for you, make the choice for your family, make the choice for the world … no matter who you want to make the choice for – just make the choice to be EMPOWERED and take the road less traveled for it will make all the difference.
– Martha Washington
I know, I know…we can say that this is a way of looking at life that is rooted too much in the way things used to be in the past – or we can say that whoever thinks this way does not know what we are going through.
You see, we can only live our own lives (as much as sometimes we may try to live other people’s as well) and because of this reality, we will never know how truly bad (or good) other people may have it. Remember what we project to the world is usually “the tip of the iceberg” – where the bulk of the reality is hidden from view.
So, when we look at this week’s empowering quote, we must forget about the rest of the world and think only of ourselves and our reality – because this is where we DO have the power of choice in how we look at things.
I will share this – it is way more difficult and a lot more work to always be looking at the positive side of things and be looking for and at opportunities – nonetheless, no one said that a life worth living was an easy life.
So, choose to be empowered this week and always be looking at the upside of everything that happens in your life. Sometimes it is very difficult to find the upside but we both know that in doing it this way, we will be able to discover our true strengths and because of it, the opportunities that others will miss … those opportunities that will allow us to leave a legacy; to be strong in navigating uncharted waters when others think it can’t be done; to be true to delivering on our responsibility to do the best we can to give the best of ourselves to this world … and in doing so achieve levels of success that we could never have imagined.
Make the choice for you, make the choice for your family, make the choice for the world … no matter who you want to make the choice for – just make the choice to be EMPOWERED and take the road less traveled for it will make all the difference.
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