Hey, I didn't sign up for this!!

Ironically that was one of the emotions I felt when I was told that the lump I found in my left breast was indeed cancer.  This couldn't be happening.  I was only 42 and recently started a new job and we had just signed the papers on purchasing a brand new town home.  My life was going along as planned, then WHAM I felt like I was sucker punched. 
Now, you would think it wouldn't be so surprising since there's a relatively strong history of breast cancer in my family, 4 women not including myself...2 cousins, my mother, my paternal aunt and my sister who endured poly cystic breast disease.  But even when I found the lump, (accidentally while at work), I dismissed it to a possible injury-after all, breast cancer lumps don't hurt....right? 

After weeks of procrastinating and believing it really was nothing, I went to my doctor.  He, unsuccessfully attempted to perform a needle core biopsy.  After 2 unsuccessful attempts to extrapolate any type of fluid, he sent me to a breast surgeon.  Once again there was another attempt of a needle core biopsy.  This time the breast surgeon was able to obtain a small amount of fluid from the lump-enough to send off to pathology. Little did I know that two days later the path of my life would be forever changed.

I chose to have a bi-lateral mastectomy followed by reconstructive surgery that would be done at a later time.  The surgeon laid all of my options out on the table and in no way steered me to one over the other.  In my mind, I knew that the mastectomy would be the more "favorable" route for me.  Initially, my decision was to have the breast removed that had the lump. I phoned my surgeon to tell him of my decision and explained to him that I could only jump one hurdle at a time.  With that he replied "this is your 1 hurdle, if you're going to jump it, jump it big."  Needless to say after much contemplating and trying to wrap my mind around making what I felt was the right decision, I elected for the bi-lateral mastectomy.  The next few weeks were a whirlwind of activity preparing for the surgery, meeting with doctors and overall a malady of tests.  The tumor that was removed was 9cm and termed "triple negative" with no lymph node involvement. 

After 6 weeks of recuperating from the surgery, I started 6 rounds of chemotherapy.  Wow...I really had no clue how much fun I would have during that!  A few small set backs (bronchitis and low blood counts) but I finally finished all 6 treatments 5 months later. 

Now, my life has taken a different turn.  It's not that I want to forget about my experience, but rather learn from it, try to understand it and help others learn to navigate through their experience.  I have always heard that some people look at things and life for that matter differently after a traumatic situation, but it took me almost 3 years to really figure mine out.  Each one of my doctors played an important role in my being here today. 
                                           Cast of Characters: 
The Breast Cancer Surgeon...Saved my life by removing the cancer
The Oncologist...Gave me an extended lease on life by "getting all of those little sucker cancer cells that may have lingered"
The Plastic Surgeon...Helped me in keeping my sanity so that I can feel like a whole person again with new breasts

And in a perfect world, cancer would be null and void so that no one would every have to experience being bald, nauseous or worse yet....scared.