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I got three tattoos this year and I didn't choose a single one of them.

Not the fun kind. Not the "I've always wanted this" kind. These three were part of my external beam radiation treatment for stage three cervical cancer, and I didn't even know they were coming until the day they showed up.

If ...

I remember hearing something as a kid that stuck with me way longer than it should have. "He's only pulling your pigtails because he likes you." Cute, right? Except it wasn't cute. It was the first lesson a lot of us got in excusing bad behaviour and calling it affection.

I sat down recently with J...

Imagine this. You've spent six months in the trenches. Chemo. Radiation. Blood tests. Scans. Steroids. Side effects you wouldn't wish on anyone. You've dragged yourself to appointments, kept your kids' lives as normal as possible, kept your businesses running, and somehow kept getting back up.

And ...

Let me guess.

Someone has asked you recently, with the best intentions in the world, "So are you back to normal yet?"

And something about that question just... didn't sit right.

Maybe you smiled and said "getting there!" while quietly wondering why you didn't feel like the person you used to be. ...