In my 35 years.

I was born and raised in the small town of Leitchfield, Kentucky. Population these days is about 6,800. I was born to single mom and met my dad a few years later.

My childhood included a family farm with cows, horses, chickens, and pigs. I enjoyed playing softball and still do. I ran cross-country and track & field, both of which I loved dearly.

I went to college at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. I studied Business Management & Human Resources and graduated in 2007. Those four years were some of the best.

I moved to Louisville, Kentucky in 2007 and started my management career but didn’t care for it a lot so switched to recruiting… then the 2008 recession hit and there went that career choice.

In 2009 on a cool fall day, I met my husband at Keeneland, a horsetrack in Lexington, Kentucky. I remember the first moment I saw him. He was wearing a pair of khaki’s, a brown sweater, a button-up underneath and a tie. He had a cup of bourbon in his hand and was bettin’ on the ponies.

A couple of months later I took a position in Administration and later moved to Human Resources and then Marketing.

In 2015, my now ‘husband’ asked me to be his wife and of course, I said yes. In 2016, we were married, welcomed our first daughter in 2017 and our second, in 2019.

In March 2020, the entire world shut down due to a coronavirus disease that was first identified in Wuhan, China. If you are reading this, you’ve been affected one way or another by this world-wide pandemic. Maybe you contracted it or have it now, maybe you are a front line worker that deals with it daily, or maybe you lost a loved one that contracted the disease. No matter the affect, you’ll remember 2020 for the pandemic. I will remember 2020 as the year I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Invasive Ductile Breast Carcinoma.

My journey as a breast cancer patient has included emotions I didn’t realize I had. I have looked at myself in the mirror and have seen a stranger. I have hugged myself and said it will be ok. And I decided to make this blog so that you can walk with me through this journey and perhaps share it with someone who needs to hear these words.