Catching up with everything

So, a lot has happened to me in less than a month since I found out I had breast cancer. What I want to do with this blog is let readers know my thoughts and emotions as I go through this journey, and hopefully I can take you to the point where I am finally finished with the whole thing and am celebrating moving on with my life-- but I'm getting ahead of myself. WAAAY ahead of myself. This is still all pretty new to me and I have a long way to go.


The thoughts and ideas expressed are not neccesarily those of this station, in other words, I don't claim to know and feel what other women go through, I can only tell you what I am thinking and feeling. Actually, sometimes I don't really KNOW what I'm thinking and feeling or even what I'm SUPPOSED to be thinking and feeling. I still haven't completely come to grips with the whole thing, as you might imagine.

I have a lot of catching up to do with you before I'm writing in real time, but I plan on trying to do that as quickly as possible. I will also go into my own personal, unique ways of coping with all this. Again, this is my gig, and not necessarily recommended for others. I will tell you I alternate between being superwoman, dealing with all of this logically and intellectually, to being a snivelling coward.

Oh, I should mention that in December I took on the guardianship of a 17-year old. Her name is Kara and she is living with me until she goes away to college at the end of August. Then this all came up. Yes, my life has become a Lifetime movie.

A little about me. I just turned 50 on August 1, of 2009. I have never married and have no children, but strange as it may sound, I still have hopes of meeting Mr. Right someday. He's late, but better late than never, I guess. *Ahem.* I live in East Central Illinois and this has been a truly cruddy winter.

As for the cancer thing, I will start at the beginning. On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, January 18, 2010, I had a physical with my GP, whom I will call Dr. B. I was kicking myself because I had forgotten this was a day off from work and had scheduled my physical for 7:30 in the morning! No sleeping in for me. Kara had to have a fasting blood test, so she went with me that morning. We both grumbled about getting up so early on a day off, but I promised I'd take her out to breakfast after.

The physical went just fine, and toward the end of it, after I had gotten dressed again, Dr. B. mentioned I'd missed my mammogram last year. Both my mother and my aunt, her sister, had breast cancer, so I started getting mammograms early and every year. I had somehow missed last year's and had not had one since 2008. Dr. B. said I should go out before I left and schedule one as soon as they had an opening. Luckily, they had a cancellation at 1:25 that day so I wouldn't have to arrange for more time off work.

Kara and I had a coupon so we went to IHOP for breakfast. It was fun and tasty and the waitress called me Kara's mom, something I am still getting used to. We just gave each other silly grins and didn't correct her.

Later I went and had my mammogram. As most women would agree, mammograms are no fun (I always think there HAS to be a better way!), but better safe than sorry, I always thought. I've had a lot of them, and none have ever come back abnormal, so I wasn't really expecting anything.

Life went on. Then on Thursday, I came home for lunch and my answering maching was blinking. It was the cancer center. Oh oh. The mammographer said something had shown up on my films. She assured me "it could be nothing." A fold of skin, a shadow, but they wanted to make sure. I had to come back in for another mammogram and possibly a sonogram.

To be continued. Next: All of us women in lavendar gowns.