My cancer journey began when I was diagnosed with Stage 1A ER+/PR+ Invasive Ductal Carcinoma on January 5, 2023, at the age of 33. To my knowledge, I had no family history of breast cancer, so my surgical options started as lumpectomy or mastectomy. Once I tested positive for BRCA2, that all changed, and I decided to have a double mastectomy. Since my diagnosis, I have experienced a whirlwind of doctor appointments, stopped birth control, and have begun taking tamoxifen and receiving a monthly Lupron injection.
I’ve had 4 surgeries in 2023 starting with my bilateral (double) mastectomy. I chose to do reconstruction, so in the same surgery my mastectomy happened I also received tissue expanders in hopes that I would still be an implant candidate later when my actual reconstruction surgeries take place. I’ve gone through chemotherapy and radiation treatment and currently, I consider myself to be in remission as of January 2, 2024.
The hardest part of this journey is staying positive and motivated. There have been times when I was angry because of my diagnosis and harbored the feeling, “Why is this happening to me?” Fortunately for me, I have had a community of women and coworkers who have supported me and who have also shared the same or similar experiences. Throughout this journey, I have laughed, cried, smiled, dealt with depression, and the re-acceptance of my new body and the way that it looks. I never could have imagined that I would go through something like this. Cancer of any kind isn’t just hard on the patient; it affects their whole support system as well. Everyone feels it. I thank God that I had the support system that I do because I’m not sure if I could’ve gone through this alone.
My journey is nowhere near complete. This is something that will linger forever because of the scans, blood tests, and general sense of fear that it may return. I have been told that I don’t look like what I have been through. I usually say, “If only you could see how I feel on the inside.” This has broken me in some ways that I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from. I’ll never be the “old me” but that’s all right. Learning new things about myself every day makes me stronger, maybe even better than the person that I was.
