Difficult decisions living with breast cancer

There are many things that define us in life, but for the young Miami Valley mother, she never thought breast cancer would be one of them.

At www.gracefulwomanwarrior.com , you'll find the written word speaking in eloquent candor about a woman's battle with stage four breast cancer.

"The last couple of months have been a real struggle for me," she writes. "The surgery. The recovery. The changes to my everyday routines... And the resistance to accepting that all of this is my new normal."

The words are those of 37-year-old Terri da Silva. "It's really just changed everything about who I am and how I'm living my life," said Terri. She said she has no family history of the disease. Her husband felt the lump and that is what brought her into the doctor's office.

In person, she's just as frank about the difficult decisions the disease has thrust upon her, and so many other women. Like most recently, whether to undergo a mastectomy, which she did just a few weeks ago.

"My initial response was, 'Take em. Take em both off. Let's get rid of them and do whatever we need to do' and then as time went on I was like,'Oh, I don't know' I was kind of attached to my breasts in a way I didn't realize I was," said Terri. "I ultimately decided to have just one breast removed instead of both. It was a difficult journey. It's something that is good to journal about, talk about , to process in whatever ways you can."

Terri began blogging. Including, about what she said is her greatest challenge: balancing breast cancer with being a wife and a mom to her three-year-old daughter.

"She's just recently, since the mastectomy, been acting out a lot," said Terri, a self-described hands-on, stay-at-home mom. "She's been throwing things, she's been mad and sad and throwing tantrums, and when you ask her why she says, 'Because mommy has to go to the doctor all the time' and it just breaks my heart. but, this is our new reality."

It is relatable reality; more than 60,000 people have visited Terri's blog. She said there's healing in sharing.

"I feel like this journey will take me to places I've never been before, and in a way that I'll be able to hopefully help lots of other women out there who are going through the same thing," said Terri