Hello! Welcome to my online living room, where I'll come to put my feet up and write about.... write about... write about - wow, I just discovered I don't even want to type the word. It's such a harsh sounding word.

Cancer.

An ugly word. When I see it written, I imagine it as a moving, growing, hideous looking organism. And I'm gonna kill it dead.  Not the other way around.

I'm learning as I go. And I've learned that I need to put my energy into ME, and not worry about keeping up with phone calls and texts and visits and providing updates on demand. This is my solution. If those close to me would like to know where I'm at with this thing, here ya go! And it goes both ways - I write when I feel like it, and you read when/if you feel like it. Win win!

Tomorrow is my first chemotherapy treatment.  I'll have it once a week for 12 weeks with the hard stuff, then it'll taper to once every 3 weeks for awhile. But I'm getting ahead.... and how in the hell did I get HERE?

I'm thinking back to what I was doing immediately "B.C.", and I'm so glad I was on a vacation! I have taken that same vacation in my head countless times since then. I was at a cute little beach cottage for a week in Ogunquit, Maine with my family. And I celebrated my 50th birthday there (Husband pulled off quite a surprise party!) and the weather was perfect. On the morning of my birthday, my daughter and I swam and played in the bigger-than-normal ocean waves. And then the party.... it was day 2 of vacation, August 21st. All was right in my world and I was never happier.

A couple of days after returning home, I was still on vacation, heading into the long Labor Day weekend. Taking care of yearly business, I got a mammogram on September 1st. Except it was different. The radiologist was reading the images live, and she asked the technologist for more images after I was told I was done. I brushed it off, no big deal, so glad I'm being well taken care of, ok let's go. The tech had a weird demeanor, which at the time I mistook for feeling bad that she didn't get good images in the first place. And then something else was different: The radiologist wanted to speak with me personally.

She was apologetic for all the images, then said, "There's something I see there that concerns me, we can't tell what it is from a mammogram, so I want you to have a biopsy to be sure. A lot of times this is nothing, but we need to check."  I walked out of that office in such a daze. Biopsy is an ugly word too. Not as ugly as cancer, but hearing the word biopsy starts the mind racing and the feeling of anxiety.

I went home and smiled. No big deal, right? Told no one at first except Husband and kids, and we went on with life for the next 3 weeks like normal. No sense worrying about it. The picture on my profile here is us, taken on September 11th. I was thinking about it the whole time. And keeping my mouth shut. That's normal, right?

On biopsy day, September 19th, I took the day out of work, and Husband took me to the hospital for the procedure. I returned to my Maine vacation (in my head) for the duration of it, even talked about it. Me, the radiologist, and a nurse happily chatted about vacations the whole time. Anything to distract from what we were really doing. Later, once the anesthetic wore off, I was weirdly sore. And all that stuff I'd pushed out of my head for weeks hit me all at once by the next day. I recuperated at home and didn't go to work, and on the third day I woke up with a knowing. I was supposed to go back to work, but I didn't feel right. At 10 am the radiologist called, and right then and there I was admitted to a club I never wanted to join.  I was home alone when the call came, and thanked her, as if she was telling me my dry cleaning was ready to be picked up.  Cheerful, detached. She explained the next steps, assured me it was early and prognosis was good, and advised I see a surgeon.  Exactly one month after that perfect milestone birthday in August, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I met with a local general surgeon, who initiated genetic tests and ordered an MRI.  Along the way, after processing everything and doing my own research, I consulted with a specialist in Boston, and decided to stay with her. Initially it was thought the best course of action was lumpectomy and radiation. Surgery was scheduled for November 21st. (People have asked me what took so long - it was tests, second opinions, then scheduling.) The analysis of what they took in the lumpectomy showed a certain receptor that calls for chemo. But it was still a question mark. The bigger issue at hand was that the surgeon was unable to get it all, so a second lumpectomy was done 2 weeks after the first. Still unable to get it all.... so in the span of a couple of weeks in December, I learned that I needed a mastectomy instead. No radiation needed in that case. BUT. The chemo question was answered.  Tomorrow is my first treatment.  And yes, I'm gonna be bald.  If you're nice to me, I might let you play tic tac toe on my head.