Birthdays take on a new meaning when you’re living with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer.
Before cancer, birthdays were just another year, another candle on the cake, another sign that time moves on, whether you notice or not.
Now, every birthday feels sacred.
When you learn you have an incurable disease, you stop taking time for granted. It becomes something you hold carefully, something precious.
Each birthday feels like a blessing.
This year, I’m grateful for something I once took for granted: my health. My treatments are working, my body is responding, and I’m still here.
That means I get to celebrate another birthday.
Cancer has changed how I see life, but it hasn’t taken my life from me. Not today. Cancer isn’t winning. It’s not welcome back in my body.
Life is hard. It always has been.
But life changes completely when you’re young and living with a disease people only talk about in statistics and survival rates. Doctors talk about treatments, not cures. The future you once expected is no longer guaranteed.
Some days, that reality feels heavy.
Other days, it makes even the smallest moments feel huge.
A sunrise, a quiet morning, a walk with my husband, another birthday.
There’s a song called Counting My Blessings that brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it. The lyrics feel like they were written for moments like this.
One, two, three up to infinity
I’d run out of numbers
Before I could thank You for everything
God, I’m still counting my blessings
For all that You’ve done in my life
The more that I look in the details
The more of Your goodness I find
Father on this side of heaven
I know that I’ll run out of time
But I will keep counting my blessings
Knowing I can’t count that high.
Those words mean something different when you’re living with Stage IV cancer.
When you hear them, you realize how true they are. None of us actually knows how much time we have, but when you live with an incurable disease, that truth stops being theoretical. It becomes real in a way that is impossible to ignore.
You start to see life differently.
You begin to notice the little things.
The quiet mornings, the laughter you almost missed, the people who stand by you when life gets really hard.
And the prayers.
Prayers from people all over the world—from friends, family, strangers, and whole communities—lifted us up when we needed it most. I can never fully explain what that support has meant to me. When you’re going through something this hard, knowing people are praying for you can feel like a light in the darkest times.
I’m also deeply grateful for the organizations that stepped into our lives with compassion and generosity. Wish Upon a Wedding and the 118 Foundation showed us kindness during one of our hardest times. They reminded us that even in tough moments, beauty and love remain.
And then there’s my husband.
He’s the greatest blessing I’ve ever received.
When people say “in sickness and in health,” it sounds beautiful in wedding vows. But you don’t really understand those words until life puts them to the test, every single day.
He cleans our house when I’m too tired, lifts me up when my spirit is heavy, sits with me when tears come out of nowhere, and helps me stay grounded when endless “why” questions fill my mind.
He holds me together in ways I can’t always explain.
He’s my angel on earth, my soulmate in this life and the next.
Cancer may be part of my story, our story, but it doesn’t get to write my life.
My life is still full of love, faith, and people who remind me every day that I’m not walking this path alone.
So this birthday looks different from the ones I once imagined.
But I’ll keep counting my blessings, even if I eventually run out of numbers.
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