100% Changed, Still Whole

Choosing wholeness in a body shaped by survival

Introduction

People often ask me if I feel like my old self again.

If I feel back to normal.

If I feel 100 percent.

I understand the question. It usually comes from care and concern. But what most people don’t understand is that after cancer, especially after a double mastectomy, there is no going back.

There is no reset button.

There is no returning to who I was before.

There is only forward.

And forward doesn’t look the way most people expect it to.

Insights for Empowerment

We live in a world that treats healing like a return trip. As if once the surgeries are done and the treatments are over, everything should snap back into place. Your body. Your strength. Your identity.

But healing doesn’t work that way.

Trauma changes you.

Survival reshapes you.

And when your body has carried you through something this significant, it deserves compassion, not comparison.

I don’t feel like my old self. And I’m not supposed to.

What I feel now is different. Quieter in some ways. Stronger in others. More grounded. More honest. More aware of my limits and finally respectful of them.

My 100 percent looks different now.

It looks like listening to my body instead of pushing past it.

It looks like resting without guilt.

It looks like honoring what I’ve lost without letting it define me.

It looks like choosing presence over performance.

There is grief in this journey too. I don’t rush past it or try to spiritualize it away. There are moments when I miss the body I had before cancer made decisions for me. I allow space for that. Because grief and gratitude can exist in the same breath.

What I know now is this. My body did not fail me. It carried me through something I never asked for and still found a way to keep going. That deserves honor.

Conclusion

So when people ask if I feel 100 percent again, my answer is honest.

I feel whole in a new way.

I feel rooted.

I feel aware.

I feel grateful for the version of me who knows her limits and honors them.

This is my 100 percent.

Not the old normal.

A truer one.

And I’m learning to trust that this version of me is enough.

Encouraging Nuggets

• Healing does not mean returning to who you were. It means honoring who you are now.

• Your body deserves grace for what it has survived.

• Wholeness is not the absence of scars. It is the presence of self respect.

• You are allowed to redefine strength on your own terms.

Scriptures

“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth.”

Isaiah 43:19

“She is clothed with strength and dignity.”

Proverbs 31:25

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

Psalm 34:18