My Story
I grew up in an exceedingly small town called Bascom, Ohio. I spent my earlier years living with my Mother and later years living with my Father who was a pig farmer.
My earlier years growing up is for another time, but later years (early teens) I grew up working on the farm with my Father and enjoyed life in the country, though I always knew one day I would leave my small town. I just felt I was not meant to stay there indefinitely. I knew I was just meant for something more and that surely was proven true. Flashing forward to March of 2008 I was a newly (2006) High School Graduate from Hopewell-Loudon High School in Bascom, Ohio was currently attending Terra State Community College in Fremont, Ohio and it was Spring Break 08! I had yet to of ever been on a spring break trip so my best friend since elementary school and I planned to a trip and we would be driving all the way to Florida from Ohio. Daytona Beach was to be our last stopping point and that my friends, is where I would find my soulmate.
If just a split second of things went any different that entire day, we never would have met. On the evening of March 8, 2008 was waiting to cross the street on Main Street downtown Daytona, is where it all would begin. It is where are paths would meet and they would forever stay intertwined. On this very night I met the man that six years later would become my husband. His name is Jamie Chasse and he was from Plainville, Connecticut. Shortly after we met in Florida and we both went back to our home states, I visited him for a long weekend in April that year when he would ask me to move in with him, and in May I packed up my little white Honda Accord and moved to Connecticut! We had only known each other for two months or so before he asked me to move in with him. We both said, when you know, you know, and we knew!
Flash forward through us building our lives together piece by piece, building a strong foundation and growing immensely from the young adults we were back in 2008 to getting married in 2014. Then me graduating college in 2014 with an Associates in Science while my husband continued to expand his business (he is an amazing artist), to me becoming pregnant with our first son, Logan and fifteen weeks in to the pregnancy finding out I had Cancer. And this is where Rise Fearlessly would finally make its debut from each brick that I had gathered, been tossed, thrown, those I searched for, you name it. Brick by brick Rise Fearlessly emerged from the fire the year I fought for my own life and my unborn sons. It started out by my husband sending me a song that he said reminded him of me called, I am Invincible by Cassadee Pope and one part really stuck with me. That was “like a phoenix from the ash.” That became a work of art that I would have tattooed on my right forearm after I finished with chemotherapy. A Phoenix Rising. The phoenix and its meaning were the power that brought about Rise Fearlessly. For there is no force more powerful that a woman determined to rise fearlessly from the fire in which tried to consume her.
Bits & Pieces From My Cancer Journey
You can read the entire blog about my journey through cancer while pregnant here. While going through the whole cancer journey, we also had become new parents for the first time. Then fast forward about three years later we would be blessed with another pregnancy, but sadly I only made it to fourteen weeks due to the baby boy having a very rare chromosome issue, but several months later we would be given another blessing and that was our son Mason. We are a family of four now. Our oldest son Logan is 4 1/2 and youngest son is 1 1/2, both October babies. We also have two fur children, Nala our Pitbull Rescue who is nothing but sweetness and Roary who is a 3.5lb Teacup Yorkie and thinks she runs the show with our Nala girl. They are the best of friends. We currently reside up on a beautiful Mountain top in Wolcott, Connecticut surrounded by woods and peacefulness. A place where we can explore and make the best of memories. I am truly and enterally grateful for the dreams I no longer have to close my eyes to see.
