My Breast cancer journey
My husband told me often that I am just adding to my story. I told him that I am done adding to my story. I have been through enough. But, God had other plans for me....
On February 11th, I hit my three year goal. With Triple Negative breast cancer, recurrence happens normally within the first two to three years after initial diagnosis. I want to say that I jumped up and down and partied all night long the minute that I hit three years, but I didn't. Truth be told, life will never be the same. I was talking to a friend last night about how our normal will never be normal again. Don't get me wrong. I was elated that I hit such a huge point in my journey and pray that there are many more years to come of proclaiming that I am CANCER FREE. But, the new normal is tiring....worrisome....taxing....and at times, just plain sucks. In December of 2016, I went in for my first MRI. I had been having routine mammograms and ultrasounds every six months, but the radiologist wanted me to start doing contrast MRIs instead because they can see deeper into the breast tissue. I had heard stories of friends who could not handle the enclosed space of the machine and had tried to pep myself up so that I wasn't one to join the several who had to have the machine stopped due to a panic attack. But.... more so....I was worried about what they were going to find. I so wanted to hear, "You are all clear!" But....I didn't. That was the scan where they found a spot on my right breast. My heart shattered, sunk, flipped, and was crushed. I was so disappointed in my body. All of my life, I have dealt with one thing after another with my health and now was the time to catch a break. But....again....I didn't. I was asked to come in for an ultrasound so that they could look further and try to see what this was. I had to wait a few days to get in. The suspense was killing me! I went in with my husband in tow and had my scan done. Guess what??? They couldn't find the spot!! I will admit....I cried. They decided to keep an eye on the area through future MRI scans to see what happens. Six months later, I had a new scan done AND there it was again. This time....bigger. My radiologist immediately sent me to get a mammogram, pretty robe and all. No spot seen...... So, he sent me straight into an ultrasound to see if they could find it that way. Nothing detected.... So, since this was the second time the spot had been detected by MRI, he wanted me to come in for an MRI guided biopsy. The very next morning, they squeezed me in and completed the biopsy. He even showed me pictures of the biopsy site so that I was assured that he had hit the right spot. And then.....we had to wait......Here we were in the realm of the unknown again. It is one of the hardest places to be. I went home scared and empty. I was distant....thinking....worrying....praying....I honestly was making plans as to what to do if this did come back as another cancerous mass. I was so close at that point to calling my doctors and scheduling a full mastectomy. What would I do? How would this affect EVERYTHING? Not again..... To get my mind off of things, the next evening, a group of us went to get our nails done. As I was sitting in the chair with my feet in the tub and aluminum foil on my nails....lol...my phone rang. It was my radiologist. The first words that I heard from him were, "Take a deep breath. It is NOT cancer." The entire place knew at that point that I did not have cancer. lol I breathed a deep breath and was able to laugh and smile again. It turned out to be a benign condition that hardens my milk ducts. Unfortunately, it will probably always show up so I won't ever get my all clear. But..... I said all of that to say this...living with cancer is not easy and it completely changes everything about how you live your life. But, what you do with it, is your choice. You can hide away and live in fear every minute of every day or you can choose to take the upper hand and take charge of your life as a cancer SURVIVOR. One of my absolute favorite authors, Patricia Polacco, wrote a book called The Lemonade Club. This book knocked my socks off the first time I read it. It was right after my diagnosis and I had blindly pulled the book out of the Polacco stash in our school library. I was reading it to my students and did not realize that this book is about a child and a teacher who both receive a cancer diagnosis. The central message of the story is the take the sour lemons that life has given you and to make wonderful, sweet lemonade out of them. That is what I choose to do. Monday, March 26th, 2018 marks my 43rd birthday and year #3 since I began chemotherapy treatments. I will continue turning my lemons into lemonade and pushing myself to rise above my new normal. :)
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