This is me today, no make up and pjs, in my favorite spot at my parent’s house where I now live in rural coastal NC.
Two weeks ago, the day before my 40th birthday, I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive breast cancer, Triple Negative Metaplastic. I have a huge tumor growing. It’s like something out of a textbook. It went from the size of a walnut to a bigger than a baseball in 5 months. I was trying to get into a primary care doctor to get a referral to get it checked out and was getting the run around by Medicaid while it kept growing. Finally I went to the ER where everything has been rushed in the matter of weeks. It was 8 cm when it was biopsied a month ago (a month? Feels like a decade!) and now it’s 11.5 cm on the CT scan. My body is hosting an angry monster.
They sent me the report of my diagnosis 4 days before I could talk to the doctor, based on the size of the tumor alone it would be considered the highest stage. So for an entire 4 days I came to terms with the fact that I’m definitely going through chemo for the rest of my life and most likely going to die. I was not even being dramatic, based on what I read online I thought when I saw the doctor she would tell me I have days to live. I am diagnosed bipolar and OCD so you can imagine how the rapidly processed stages of grief went for me.
My Mom went with me to talk to the surgeon. I disassociated the entire time I walked into the cancer center. I kept asking the surgeon what the prognosis was on my lifespan after she had already told me that it was a curable year long plan of chemo, double mastectomy, immunotherapy and radiation.
It must be by design, because that all sounded totally doable in lieu of not dying tomorrow.
Because of everything being sped up bc of the ER and the size of the tumor, I have had to make all these life changing decisions on my own in a short period of time. The internal changes and spiritual epiphanies and lifestyle changes I’ve had and made in a short period of time is nothing short of a miracle. I started bawling while telling the guy I just barely started seeing that I was having to decide between losing one breast or both. I can either get reconstructive surgery which often comes with pain or complications, or go flat.
They gave me knitted prosthetics, which was sweet, but for a deep thinker like me it completely derailed me. It all has. I took one look at those boob shaped balls of cotton and thought my God, Breast Cancer is like a humiliation ritual for women.
Anyway, there’s so much I want to say but I just wanted anyone who bothered to read this to share their stories of their or their loved one’s cancer journey’s. The good bad and the ugly. The sometimes beautiful. I always thought being so vulnerable made me weak…but Brene Brown said it’s the greatest measure of strength. About the only strength I have is crying haha sounds about right 😂👏 Well that, and making big decisions for myself. I can do this. Everyone says you’re a survivor and youre like 🤷♀️ what else am i gonna do lol
Anyway I know cancer is anything but dull but I’m starting to treat it like it’s boring me lol I just want it out soon. I say it’s like I lived my life wanting to die and when it came down to it cancer taught me the exact opposite: that I want to live. The thought of not living is way more boring than it used to be 🤷♀️😂
