2025 - Digging Deep with a Resilience for Life

I had a horrific year in 2024 from beginning to end with overwhelming, stressful events. Thus, I was not really surprised that it manifested itself in cancer.

Last October, I felt a "knot" in my back behind my left breast, so I scheduled an examination with whoever I could get soonest. The doctor didn't feel anything and thus agreed with my theory that perhaps I just pulled a muscle.

A few weeks later in November, I was released along with 52 other employees from a place I dearly loved for 9-1/2 years - I was devastated.

Around this time into December, I suddenly discovered what I hoped was a benign cyst on the side of my left breast, but the irritation I felt before was getting worse. Already having my annual checkup scheduled for mid-January, I figured whatever it was would be taken care of then.

At that appointment, my regular primary doctor felt what I was feeling, and so it began...

During my first oncologist consultation, I was literally shaking in his office when I asked him one question = “Am I going to live?”

He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Yes. This is curable.”

I am happy to say that he was right! - I’ve indeed had a “complete remission,” as he stated at my last appointment with him this November.

One of my favorite quotes by Chuck Swindoll says, “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” I truly had to dig deep into my resilience for life this year like I never had before, but the rewards are worth it!

Dawn Staszak

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