Hello Everybody! This site was formed to assist you in the healing and organization of your knowledge, wisdom and challenges of facing a disease in your life. In my case, it’s the infamous breast cancer! Although you might be cursed with some other thing like MS or whatever, I hope you can find compassion, honesty, and support on this site. In my own search, I felt so alone. I didn’t know what to ask, or whom to ask what! The medical community means well, but they aren’t there with you after Jay Leno shuts out the lights for the evening. It’s just you and the sheets.
My cancer journey is new, just starting this last summer. I am continually reminded how lucky I am. Its only Stage II, hormone positive, invasive without lymph node involvement. It will only be a lumpectomy and you will be on your way to radiation, and home free. I can do this I thought. No problem.
Well just like the cancer came unannounced in the night like a thief, it didn’t work out to be one lumpectomy either. The sneaky little cells just wouldn’t give up the good fight. Okay, ‘it will just be one more lumpectomy’ and then you’ll be done. Nope. Bad margins again. You will come to learn these terms. Its amazing how cancer or disease can increase your vocabulary almost overnight.
After the third try, it was determined I had to have a total mastectomy. Now there is an interesting word, because I was told I had already had the mastectomy earlier…turns out it was only partial. Read up on mastectomies for late night horror reading. Sigh….how many ways to remove a breast!
The strange thing for my case, and I don’t mean to be sarcastic or flip here, because it is a serious topic, but my cancer was here and gone before I even adjusted to the fact I had cancer. They tell me now, it is gone. But, it isn’t over, until it’s over. I have to take hormone therapy treatment for five years. More on that later. So, supposedly, and I guess I believe it, yes I believe it, my cancer was removed. I still have what caused it though, high levels of estrogen. I still have one more breast. It’s supposed to be okay. But there comes this little word…doubt. It hides and lurks in the shadows at night. That’s what cancer does best…cause fear.
