On October 10, 2011, I heard the words no one wants to hear…”You have cancer”. I couldn’t grasp at the time how those words would change my life! I was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer, and though my surgeon was certain he had gotten clean margins when he did the lumpectomy, my oncologist and radiologist recommended chemo and radiation…followed by years of ongoing drugs. I’ve always been a determined person, and I was absolutely positive that I would survive this disease,
And I did…but no one tells you how much your life will be changed…forever. I was once thin and athletic, but the weight gain and ongoing pain in my body made it difficult to even climb up a set of stairs. I had to find new ways to manage around my home.
Then in 2013, I was blessed to have my mother move closer to me. She had just turned 80 – and was in much better shape than me! That all changed though by a simple slip on some water, and she broke her hip. It wasn’t the fall or broken hip that caused her problems…it was the anesthesia she had in order to have the surgery. Thankfully, he surgeon prepared us by saying that the brain is very similar to a computer. The older it is, the harder it is to reboot, and some times, the process never updates. This was so true of my mother! She began to experience memory issues which only got worse as she got older (not to mention she broke her other hip during Covid!).
All of a sudden, my vibrant mom was experiencing many of the same issues I was facing from my cancer journey…less mobility and memory loss/brain fog. I was determined (yep – I said it again!) to find ways to help her remain as independent as possible – for as long as possible!
These two events – plus the fact that my husband started working as the GM of a Senior Living Community – lead me to begin a search for items to make life easier…more LIVABLE! When my journey began, there were very few resources to find the things I was looking for.
That’s when Livabilities was born!