One thing I have found out is cancer can make or break a relationship. You truly find out things about your caregiver that you never knew before. Your caregiver can be your husband, mom, sister, children or whoever is your primary person that is helping you thru this journey. They are there to change your surgical dressings, drain your vessels, brush your hair, wipe away the tears and be your support. Fighting cancer makes you rethink life and sometimes it makes you reconsider your relationships. There are women who after all their cancer treatments divorce their husbands or sadly enough, their husbands leave them. Either way, you as a cancer survivor are stronger. You have shed a weight that held you back. By facing cancer it has opened your eyes to this fact. If your husband left you, he is the weak one. You are the warrior because you are the survivor and you can only feel sorry for them because you are the one who will live life to the fullest and they could not see past their selfish needs to help you. If you have divorced your spouse, you have realized the unhappiness from your relationship could effect your life expectancy. You don't need the added burden and you've decided to do something about because you have your life to live. You've been given a 2nd chance and having battled cancer once, you will always live with the fear it will come back.
There are also women who have to face this journey without the support of a husband or partner. I think these women are the strongest of all. I have the greatest admiration for these ladies who have gone through everything from surgeries, chemo consultations, cancer result phone calls by themselves. Yes they may have the support of their family but not of a spouse. There is something to be said about these women and the strength they have. I have so much respect for you and look to you for guidance because you have the strength that I do not have. As we enter into this new phase of life, you are the type of person I want to share my time with. I know you think like I do. We have been given a 2nd chance and we are not going to waste it.
On the other hand, cancer can bond your relationships to a strength that you never thought possible. There are some that are blessed with relationships that are strong to begin with and this cancer process somehow makes an even stronger imprint on your relationship. You are at your weakest point in your life. A stranger has handed you a mortality % that you must absorb and react to. Your spouse is there to pull you through the darkness, sometimes gently and sometimes with force but either way, their goal is to keep you alive so you can spend the rest of your lives together. You work as a team to get the best possible outcome.
Frank and I have started our new phase called "going big". Not the Danville definition of "going big" there will be no big Bemers, no flashy jewelry,no over the top antics. We are going big, Garcia style. We have purchased a juicer to give us the most freshest juice possible. We have purchased self help/positive thinking books. We have purchased cookbooks that emphasize whole grain, fresh cooking. We are researching nutrition, meditation, and alternative healing practices. Why all this? I need to make my body as strong as possible before heading into chemo. Once I finish chemo i will need to keep my body as healthy as possible so my good cells will wage war againest any cancer cell that might be left after chemo or if my body generates more cancer cells. You know what, I'm going to win too. Cancer will not return to my body once I go thru all this. It's a done deal. I just need to get thru the next year and I will with everyone's help.
Keep me company as I travel thru my journey facing breast cancer again.
Why would anyone want to read about someone else's problem when you have plenty of your own? Maybe one day a loved one, a friend, or you will be diagnosed with breast cancer. My blog might offer insite into cancer resources, thoughts, questions to ask, or guidance in helping you deal with this disease. These are my experiences and suggestions. Every breast cancer is different. If you are touched by breast cancer, be sure to consult your Dr. for direction in treatment.
I equate my blog to the emergency evacuation instruction the flight attendants do before you take off on an airplane. Nobody pays attention to them but when your plane is about to crash you think, "sh*t, why didn't I pay more attention to them? Which color cord do I pull first again?" We have so many things going on in our lives that one more thing to dwell on that doesn't apply to us right now may not be important but when it does, we wish we would have paid attention.
My blog is something you might read a couple times or maybe follow. Hopefully you gain some knowledge about breast cancer, in particular, Invasive Lobular Carcinoma (ILC). It is the 2nd most common type of invasive breast cancer however it only accounts for approx. 10% of all invasive breast cancers. It is the silent breast cancer. It is generally not detected with a mammo but rather an ultrasound. Invasive Lobular Carcinoma (ILC) is what I have been diagnosed with. My suggestion to every woman who is of mammo age insist on an ultrasound with your mammos.
UPDATE 3/2011
I have had my bilaterial mastectomy and I am recovering. ILC is a sneaky cancer as I said above. My various Dr.'s here and at UCSF confirmed the size of my tumor should be between 2.5cm-3.5cm with possibilty but not most likely, 7cm. After my surgery, my tumor was confirmed to be 11cm. My Dr.'s are very knowledgeable and are on top of things. This is simply the truth about ILC. I had mammos every 6 months, ultra sounds, and MRI's. With all of these, it was not picked up until 1/2011. The good news, if you can call it that, only 1 sentinel node out of 2 has micromastic findings and 5 aux. nodes were negative.
Be sure to start my adventure from the blog history on the right. I have tried to bold points to make it easier to extract the important information. If there is anything you get out of this blog, refer to my Dr.'s listed below if you know someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer in the East Bay. These Dr.'s; Dr. Gottlieb, Dr. Wotowic, and Dr. Sherman are my 3 musketeers....all for 1 and 1 for all!
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