n00b

So...  First day with your new blog?  Yeah, I am a n00b.  To so many things.  In this blog, in this space, I am a breast cancer n00b.  Well, I *was* a breast cancer n00b, let's see, approximately 27 days ago.  On June 30th, 2014, I was diagnosed with stage II Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma in my right breast.  Fast forward to today, and I am 15 days post-radical right mastectomy.  I am 45 years old, 7 months into a new relationship, and I am a n00b.  I chronicled my early days and weeks on FB, I vented to friends and family, I agreed to do a documentary of my journey, and talked at least 16 people into feeling the lump in my breast before they cut it off.  I have been told I am brave, strong, undefeatable, wise, and courageous, in response to sharing my story.  I have also been told I'm a bit crazy, as well.  It was the only way I knew how to do it.  I am a history professor, by trade.  I research and teach for a living.  It's the world I know.  The world where I am most comfortable.  And on June 30th (the day I found out the lump WASN'T a tumor), I was dropkicked into a new, alien, uncomfortable world.  I was scared, and that is a word I *never* use lightly.  I could even add "to death," which I don't think I've *ever* used, not seriously.  So I dragged my uncomfortable-ness into my comfortable world and started posting.

Over the next week, after we received the "call," consulted with a surgeon, read everything we could find on lumpectomies, mastectomies, radiation, chemotherapy, estrogen, HER2neu proteins, cure rates, and the 12 MILLION (exaggerated perception) different kinds of malignant breast cancer, which can only be determined definitively through analysis of the removed tumor and 3-4 "sentinal lymph nodes," I spiraled into a quickly changing, completely unpredictable, dynamically expressive series of dramatic mood fluctuations.  My partner, Brian, (you know, the previously mentioned 7 month relationship) rode (and is STILL riding) every wave with me.  My children, to a lesser extent, rode many of those waves with me, as well.  And because I chose to post my journey on FB with the overt goal of educating complacent men and women into REGULAR SELF-EXAMS EVERY FOUR WEEKS BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT SAVED MY LIFE, I found that ultimately, it was for me as much as it was for anyone and everyone who would listen.

But as time went on, the posts became less completely about the medical reality, options, downsides, and decisions and more peppered with the immense challenges of adjusting to the reality of being a 45 year old woman in a new relationship who was chopping her breast off in a week or so...  I could sense a sutble (and sometimes not so subtle) shift in people's reactions, responses, and maybe even willingness to delve into the rabbit hole me and mine were tumbling down.  At first, I was a bit put off.  The love and support and prayers and thoughts were precious - invaluable - in getting through the medical quagmire of information we had to absorb and digest in order to make life altering decisions in a matter of days.  But what about the rest of me?  My heart - my soul - everything that is *I* was screaming at the top of my lungs - THIS IS F#CK!NG CRAZY!  THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING TO ME!  But it was.  It is.  It will always be.  So what did I expect from all these wonderful people who came out of the woodwork to support me, to thank me, to pray for me, to help me, but didn't necessarily feel the desire/need/capability to jump in with both feet with me, and really, should they?  Could I, if the shoes were switched?  Yes, I *could,* but would I, if it were a past friend, a previous professor, a social contact...  really, anyone but my partner or my kids?  No, I wouldn't.  Because I couldn't.  That's the way society is supposed to work.  We can't care all the time - deeply, intensely, personally - about everyone in our lives.  We have to save those reserves for the times when they are most important.  Like this one for me and Brian and my two sons.  That makes sense.

But that doesn't change my want - my need - to share *all* of this journey - heart, mind, body, spirit, and missing breast.  I need to do it for me.  Maybe no one will read this now, while it's happening.  Maybe they will, it doesn't matter.  I *know* this will help me heal, so I am doing it.  But maybe, just maybe, someone I know will end up where I am.  1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.  In the next two decades, predictions suggests that more than 50% of diagnoses will be women under the age of 50 instead of the current over the age of 60.  Maybe down the road, my chronicles of cancer will provide some....  comfort or...  companionship or...  distraction for someone suffering.  Maybe.  But it doesn't matter.  I am doing it anyway.  What is the harm, right?  Well, that has yet to be seen, but I don't really believe in "harm" in this context.  I mean, I'm looking down at the plane of what used to be my right breast.  It's all relative, in the end...

And so I sit here - same person, same heart, but different body.  Same, same, but different.  It's a phrase I learned in Cambodia.  It means, "yeah, this book is a bound photocopy of the original.  It has the same words, the same ideas, the same pictures, the same story, it's just...  different."  Yup, it is different.