The Beginning

My former teaching partner and friend, Nick Hall, always told me to keep a journal while going through my treatments to inspire others. I passed up on that notion quickly as my cancer whirlwind-life kept me five steps behind my "regular" life schedule or whatever that means. I'm about a year and a half out of chemo but read Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips and it inspired me to finally start my own personal blog. So thanks to Nick and Kris I have my Conquering Cancer Blog!

I was diagnosed with BC November 16, 2005. I will never forget that day because it shouldn't have happened. I found my lump one night in early July as I positioned myself to sleep and rested my right hand on my right breast. Why haven't I felt this lump earlier? It felt huge to me. Panic stricken me but there wasn't anything I could do until the next morning. I remember sitting in my doctor's office and her dismissing the possibility of cancer because I was too young. Either way, I had an appointment with the mammographers the following week.

Mammograms stinks for those of us with small breasts. I guess it's the same for those with large ones. Nothing was conclusive from my mammo since my breasts are so dense. My ultrasound didn't show up anything either. I remember going home that day feeling relieved but not quite whole.

I had my follow-up with my doctor in September of 2005. Why didn't I fire her by then? Easy, I didn't want it to be cancerous. Again, she said it was fine but RJ, my boyfriend, insisted that I get further testing done. He did it in part because he loves me and in part because I continued to obsess about my lump every evening. My doctor said she could refer me to a surgeon to have a needle biopsy. I told her I would like that to be on the safe side.

I immediately liked my surgeon. She actually listened to me and treated me like a human being. She ran an ultrasound on me and my lump pretty much doubled in size! Benign or not, she recommended it coming out because of the quick growth. She even performed a needle biopsy on me that day to ease my mind since my surgical biopsy wasn't scheduled for another two weeks. The needle biopsy also came back negative.

RJ was there when I was wheeled in for my surgical biopsy and was there when I was wheeled out. I recuperated fairly well and even went back to work on Monday having had the surgery on Friday. Besides getting my wisdom teeth pulled, I never had surgery before. Little did I know but all that was going to quickly change.

November 16th was the day I left work early to make my follow-up appointment with my surgeon. She was to look at the surgical site and check for infections. I remember sitting in my awful gown waiting from her. I remember her saying, "I'm sorry I don't have good news. It was cancerous...." The rest was a blur. Welcome to the world of cancer.