Greetings from the Other Side of Surgery

Heart shape on the floor of Lovelace Breast Imaging Center in Albuquerque. This photo was taken on the day I got my second mammogram and found out I'd need a biopsy. I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks later.

I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer in November and this website and communications slowed down. It wasn’t the health condition that kept me from reaching out, or maybe it was. Even though I tell myself and others that my diagnosis is not an emergency, cancer is still a shadow - always at my feet, always following. My mind is often busy and the last couple of months have been, in some ways, dizzying. Thus, I fell behind on certain things, like updating Hunting for Hearts.

I am writing this note immediately after updating the website with 24 heart photos this community captured between the last newsletter and the end of 2025. Twenty-four heart photos in one month - incredible! And get this - I am still behind on updating the website because I have even more photos from this community that were shared in January. Keep watching the website and your inboxes because a lot more love is headed your way.

So that I don’t ignore the elephant that’s now chomping on peanuts and stomping around in the corner of the room, I’ll share a little bit about my diagnosis. I am lucky that the cancer was discovered extremely early as microcalcifications on a routine mammogram. I won’t need chemotherapy, and my surgery - a lumpectomy - that took place this month, was much easier than a mastectomy. I will never stop saying how fortunate I am to have my particular circumstances.

From the morning the doctor called with my diagnosis until the morning of my surgery in early January, I tried to keep cancer’s inconveniences at bay. My husband Travis and I drove through the desert to meet up with family in Arizona for Thanksgiving. I wrote another long paper for a graduate school course and got an A. I designed and mailed Christmas cards with snowflakes on the envelopes. I spent a few days running on a sunny San Diego beach with Travis, during a trip we dubbed a HealthCation and CancerCation, and we clinked champagne-filled glasses with our friends in Albuquerque on New Year’s Eve. My life, all things considered, continued normally, with the exception of an increase in doctor appointments. In addition, my community of family and friends who live as close as a few doors down and as far as thousands of miles, showed up to offer love and support.

If I knew beforehand that I’d have to experience breast cancer treatments, this early stage diagnosis is the one I’d hope for. However, that doesn’t mean the last couple of months have been easy as my loved ones and I sifted through information and uncertainty about side effects, risks, and recurrence rates. I may undergo radiation, and I will definitely take a hormone blocker for an estimated five years. Medical information, fear, and decisions often fill my mind. Cancer is, in my situation, as much of a mental challenge as it is a physical one.

With everything going on, I decided not to make new year’s resolutions this year, however I listened to an NPR episode in December that inspired me to focus on a question in 2026: “What can I learn from cancer?” So far, I’ve learned a lot, and I’m sure I’ll share some of that with this community over the next coming weeks and months.

I want to keep connecting with you. Thank you for continuing to send heart photos, despite website, newsletter, and event delays. Speaking of events, I added new dates for Writing and Music Nights and I hope you’ll consider signing up. I enjoy meeting up for these nights where we create, share our work, and lift each other.

Take care, my friends. The world is heavy in many ways, but we still have each other and love.

This photo was captured in San Diego in December during a trip my husband and I called a HealthCation, or CancerCation. I took this photo at the beach one morning because the shape looked like a heart on a string, or a heart balloon.