A year ago today,.....

2miraclesmom

A year ago today, my life forever changed when I heard the fateful words, "it is cancer". I don't know who was more shocked, me or my doctor. I was fit, eat a healthy (or pretty healthy lol) diet, had no family history, there basically was no reason for me to ever hear those words. I did not have one single risk factor. Other than I am female. The next thing she said was, "you are not going to die. I can fix this. It is no big deal." I said ok, what do we do? She kept asking me if I was ok and wanted to call someone for me. I kept saying no, what do we do? lol After about 5 min, she finally gave up and went to get some information for me. While she was gone, I made 5 phone calls. When she came back, I had my scarf party set up, I had my best friend scheduled to fly from Florida to stay with me while I needed her, I had support for my then 4 yr old daughter and  someone to organize meals and go to dr appointments with me. All I needed was dates. My doctor was a little shocked. lol You see, when I was 12 yrs old, I made an off handed remark to my mom that if I ever go breast cancer I would have them both removed and be done with it. I was 37 when I was diagnosed and I stuck to it. My tumor was only 2.5 cm and I had just had my check up from my ob a few months earlier and she had not palpated anything. So we expected everything to go smoothly. She did say my implants saved my life because they pushed the tumor up. After more testing, the bad news kept coming. There was a second tumor under my nipple (smaller than the first), then there was a third in my other breast (turned out to be cystic so nothing to worry about), ER+ and Her2+ and finally nodal involvement. The final blows came after surgery. My first Oncologist said Stage 2b. After he cancelled my first chemo appointment as I was walking out the door to come to my appointment, I found my new Oncologist. He is wonderful! Except that he said I am a Stage 3A because I have 5 nodes involved and my other doctor only considered the 3 that were macro. So onto a different kind of Chemo. After my tumors were biopsied it was discovered I am not ER+. Very good news for me since I want more kids. Today, I am finished with chemo and radiation, my hair is growing back and I just have Herceptin until Dec. 12th. I managed to finish 10 college classes this year, and am taking the last 5 this semester to finish my degree. My son starts college in a week and my daughter starts kindergarten and we are losing our home to foreclosure. My mother is emotionally vacant when it comes to me. I don't think she knows how to handle it so she just doesn't, she ignores it. Most everyone I know actually does. Because I look healthy, I must be. No one very was even worried. They knew I would be OK. It was nice that they had so much faith in me but, come on! We laughed through every stage, from my hunch back after my surgery to shaving my head into a mohawk. It has been a journey.

So today it has been a year since my journey began, and I am the only one that remembers what today is. I did tell my brother and he just said oh. After this horribly long story I know you guys will understand how significant today is to me. Today is the day my life changed forever.