What is this?

June 16, 2009. Nearly 43 years old, I got the “You-have-breast-cancer” look from a radiologist. By mid-August I was diagnosed with Stage IIa Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, estrogen and progesterone receptive, HER2 negative. Thankfully, these were my breast surgeon’s words immediately following the diagnosis: “It’s treatable; it’s curable.”

The smallish mass in my left breast had a little satellite floating nearby and the cancer had gone to one lymph node. With medical information changing daily, I was failing miserably at keeping family and friends updated via email, so I started putting “updates” on a private website created through Lotsahelpinghands.

And this summer, those updates are evolving into this public blog.

Once diagnosed, I desperately wanted to find someone like me. Living fast with a husband and four- and six-year-old sons. I wanted to see how someone like me did this. I wasn’t successful in finding a mirror image. For cancer-related information, I relied on my doctors and nurses and a few strong formidable women who had either walked this path or were walking it the same time as I was. I chose not to go on the Web to research breast cancer, personally feeling that most voices that choose to voice are negative. Mentally, I could not afford to get sucked into that black hole.

Upfront my husband Bill and I decided cancer would have some of our moments but not all of our moments. And off we went, with a good dose of humor to spin most days’ stories.

This is an archive of my writing from June 2009 through June 2010. I hesitate to label it. It’s definitely NOT all about cancer. From “The Plan: a nice quiet Friday night” setting the tone for the beginning of this year-long hiccup to “Six days after 2nd Chemo” beginning my journey as a bald woman, this is a glimpse of life as it kept on rolling those twelve months.

If not bald during a solid portion of the last year, I surely would have been grayer. Proof of that is in “Second new stage: Exper-ee-menting.” :)

Staying strong,

Linda