I know some people don’t like the word journey, but I use this word to describe the path we take throughout our lives.  There are straight paths, curvy paths, long, short, bumpy -so many ways to describe the events in our lives.  I have even thought of life as a roller coaster at times.  You never know what is around the next corner or hill, but you have to be brave.  This is not always easy and a lot of the time it feels scary and beyond my control.  However, I have learned that I can control how I deal with and feel my way through life.  I want to be brave, loving and inspiring.

I am not sure where to begin, so I will begin at the start. I decided to see my doctor in March due to being tired, maybe exhausted is a better word.  I went thinking of course I am tired; I am a single, working mom.  At the end of my appointment my doctor did blood work and referred me to have a mammogram.  When I asked why she said because it had been a year and a half since my mammogram (my one and only mammogram).  Luckily, I could make my appointment during spring break…woohoo, I wouldn’t have to take any leave or write sub plans (bonus)!

My mammogram was on April 4th.  I took my daughter with me. She got to wait in the waiting room and read – fun way to start her spring break.  After this we enjoyed Spring Break together.  We went roller skating, watched movies, played with Legos, had a visit from her older sister and put in a new garden bed.  It was a good week. The following week we went back to school and the mammography office left a message for me to call back.  I went back on April 15th because they found calcifications that needed to be biopsied.  My biopsy was then scheduled for April 19th.  I was so scared, while friends and family reassured me it would be fine I wasn’t so confident.  I read about what my stereotactic biopsy would entail.  Let’s just say a guy invented this machine – you lay face down on a table with a hole in it.  Your breast falls through the hole and then it is stabalized ( let’s call this what it is PINCHED) in a good place for the technician to be able to use the needle to take samples.  This took an hour, 5 adjustments of my breast to be in the right spot, markers of where they took the sample and to top it off a mammogram to document where the markers were placed.  Then back to work with ice packs in my bra to help with the swelling.  Then the waiting and bruising began – within a week my boob looked as though it could camouflage for the army.  It continued to change colors for quite some time…weird, but a great laugh some days.  Along with the waiting for results not laughable–very nerve raking.   I was told it would be 7 – 10 days for results to come back.

I received a call from my doctor’s office 2 days later; my doctor wanted to see me the next day.  This was no good!  I lost it – it must be cancer and I can’t have cancer!  I have a wonderful little girl to raise, bug, love and life to live.  This begins my cancer story…more to come soon.