Wedding Planning and Chemo. I'll take it!

So I have some really exciting news!!!!! My amazing, wonderful, handsome boyfriend PROPOSED on Thanksgiving!!!! I was so shocked and excited. I really didn't see it coming, he did a great job keeping it a secret from me! It happened at my 93 year old grandmother, nanny's, house a place that is very special to me. He proposed after our big meal and after the Cowboy game ended, in front of 17 of my family members including his mom Arlene who was visiting all the way from Canada. My mom and stepdad were prepared with two nice champagne glasses and some good champagne to celebrate, and celebrate we did until about 1:00 AM! It could not have been more perfect. The ring is amazing- so sparkly and so "us." I'm so impressed with Kelly, my "fiancé!"

I'm also so very excited to have some GOOD news and a big party to plan and look forward to. It's a bit of a challenge getting things planned through my "wedding road blocks" of chemo, a mastectomy, radiation, and reconstruction, but I think we'll manage. :) I may not look totally like myself or quite as I had planned to look on my wedding day but the main thing is that WE GET MARRIED!!!! So excited to be married to my fabulous man! 

Tomorrow will be my 5th chemo treatment and my first Taxol/Carboplatin treatment. I should know by tomorrow whether or not I have the "cancer gene". Fingers crossed that I don't! I think the next 4 treatments will last a little longer- like around three hours to get both drugs. (update- it took four and a half hours! I slept through two hours of it though bc they gave me benadryl.) :)  Kelly is in Chicago and then heading to Toronto with the team this week so my mom will be going to chemo with me. I have a feeling we'll do some wedding planning while I sit in my chemo chair. Works for me! Also- I was given two JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE tickets for tomorrow's concert at the AAC so I'm going to pray that I feel OK after chemo! These drugs are not supposed to be as tough on the body as my last two (which weren't even too bad for me) so I'm hoping that I will feel good enough to dance tomorrow night! :) 

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, are loving on your hair and not sweating the small stuff in life. The holiday season can be busy and crazy but it's such a good time to reflect on how lucky we all are- (especially if you are blessed with fabulous hair and good health! ;) )  I'm so thankful for my amazing family who is helping me through this battle, my great, knowledgeable doctors, and my strong, supportive fiance, and I'm really looking forward to the Christmas season. Until next time!

XOXO

Julie

Just after the proposal :) 

My gorgeous ring that Kelly picked out all on his own!

My new family! Little did I know they were not just cooking here but also scheming :)

Things are coming along...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This blog was supposed to be posted a week ago but things got busy and here we are today :) Here's last week's update and I'll follow with another!

Last Wednesday I went in for my 4th chemo treatment and got a lot of news. Kelly was my chemo partner this time which is always great :) I love when he can be with me. First I went in for my blood work which was all good. That means I can proceed to get the chemo treatment. My doctors were running a little behind so I went and did my 30 minute workout with FITSteps for Life after I got my blood work done. I like doing this workout and who knows, maybe it is part of the reason my side effects have been kept at bay and the cancer is shrinking. So after the workout I went to visit my doctor and her nurse Christina. She told me that she is going to add Carboplatin to my drug "recipe" for the last four sessions. This is the drug that has been good at producing a "pathological complete response"to the chemo- which means that they hope the cancer will be ALL THE WAY gone before surgery and NEVER COME BACK. I really hope it is ALL THE WAY GONE and NEVER COMES BACK!!!! Work, Carboplatin, work!! :) I will get this drug along with a drug called Taxol every three weeks. So my treatments will now move from every 2 weeks to every 3 weeks. It will be nice to not have to worry about chemo every couple of weeks but the down side is that it pushes everything back by three weeks. My first Carboplatin/Taxol treatment will be December 4th. The chemo will now take me through the end of February. So that means my surgery will most likely be at the beginning of March. I'm a little bummed because Kelly and I will basically be off for the whole month of February for the NHL's Olympic break. It would have been good timing to have surgery and recover without having to miss any work. March will get super busy for us again so it's not the ideal time... but let's be real, I guess there's never an ideal time to have your boobs cut off!! :0 I can't stress about it as that won't do me any good. So mastectomy will be early March, then I recover for about three weeks and then I will most likely start radiation. Radiation will last 5-6 weeks and is every day Monday through Friday for 15 minutes. That will be tough. Not sure how that's all going to work with my schedule but we'll see! Then I need to rest and recover for three whole months before my reconstruction, which puts me at about August for that big time surgery.  It' s a lot longer timeline than I was hoping. I will have "expanders" put in with my mastectomy and will keep those until my reconstruction. They fill the expanders every month or so with salene which will help to progressively stretch your skin out to be able to fully finish the reconstruction. I have soooo many questions about all of this and now have an appointment set up with my plastic surgeon for December 18th and I'll get to find out a lot more! Hope everyone has a great Holiday weekend!! XO

Julie

If it weren't for cancer......

Tomorrow will be chemo #4, the halfway point! Hoping to get some more good news.  I'm gonna get a little sappy here today as I reflect back on the last two months. :)

Sometimes I think, "If it weren't for cancer, my life would be pretty perfect right now." But then I stop and think... "or maybe... this is just the way it should be." A lot of the reasons that I'm so happy these days are a result of things that have happened to me since being diagnosed.

This past weekend, nine of my best friends from college, my Chi Omega sisters, came to see me. It's very rare for everybody to have a free weekend where we can all get together, and for them to all fly to Dallas and come to me is just so super awesome! I got to host all my best friends at my house, take them to my favorite places in Dallas and just relax and have some fabulous girl time that I had really been craving. This was our life every day of college at Mizzou, and those were some of the best times of my life. This weekend felt just like we were back in college, we were all just snuggling, gossiping, laughing and even crying. It made me so happy and thankful for what I have. If I didn't have cancer, last weekend wouldn't have happened. 

If I didn't have cancer, I wouldn't have seen just how amazing people really can be. I was starting to doubt the goodness of people after this past year of tragedies across our nation. The shooting in Newtown really hit my boyfriend Kelly and I hard. I just don't understand how somebody could be such a monster. We cried for a few days after that. It's crazy to me that even after that horrible tragedy, shootings of this kind kept occurring in our country. I was really starting to doubt the good in humanity. Now- that's all changed and I'm just in awe of how amazing people really are. I've had so many people reach out to me that I can't even keep track, and feel horrible that I can't personally thank everybody. The website my best friend Jessie made (www.helpjuliebeatcancer.com) has had such an unbelievable response. Friends, family and even strangers have been reaching out, donating money to my medical fund, and leaving me kind words that really strengthen and inspire me. I check it often and it immediately lifts my spirits. I don't think I would feel so strong and inspired and loved if it weren't for cancer.

About 95% of the people I work with are dudes who love sports. Dudes who love sports and love fantasy football and making off color jokes. These dudes are not known for being sentimental.  Now, I come in to work and these dudes just give me hugs. They ask how I'm doing. They call and check on me, and have even donated to my website.  The outpouring of concern and care from my co-workers has been so incredible. I wouldn't get these hugs or know how amazing all my co-workers truly are if it weren't for cancer.

The Dallas Stars organization, wow, has just gone above and beyond to let me know that they care. From the players and their wives, to the front office, to the fans... they've made me feel so special. Dropping the puck at the Stars v Calgary game on Hockey Fights Cancer night was one of the most amazing nights of my life.  Seeing the arena stand up and cheer me on, like they would for a Jamie Benn game winning goal, was just such a surreal moment. I would not have experienced that moment if it weren't for cancer. 

My friends and family have really gone out of their way to show me support and let me know that they care. Almost every day I have a nice card in the mail or a friend calling to see if I need dinner or company, or just wanting to know how they can help. I got a dozen roses from a girl I haven't talked to in about a decade. I've received kind words and donations from so many friends and friends of friends. I received donations and hand written cards from co-workers of my stepdad whom I've never met. I've received inspirational notes and facebook messages from people I've met throughout my life, and even some other cancer survivors. I've received an outpouring of love from Kelly's family and his parent's friends in Canada, and it's all just so amazing. People are so kind. Most of my relationships I have with people in my life have become stronger.  I have treats and gifts and blankets and flowers and hats and cards all throughout my house that serve as constant reminders of just how much I am loved and how many people are pulling for me. It's hard to get sad in a house full of treats and gifts and blankets and flowers and hats and cards. I wouldn't have a house full of treats and gifts and blankets and flowers and hats and cards if it weren't for cancer.

A new Bible study group has been formed with some of my close friends and women of all ages. I love taking time each week to become closer to God and to be reminded of his love for me. I love the bond I now have with these amazing women. I wouldn't be so close to God right now or have this wonderful Bible study time to reflect if it weren't for cancer.

My spirits have been so high and I'm just so happy these days. I have an amazing boyfriend and the best friends and family that anybody could ask for. I love my job and all of my co-workers and feel so blessed to have landed in such a great spot surrounded by so many loved ones here in Dallas. It sounds so weird- but I don't know that I would be as happy as I am if it weren't for cancer. I'm not going to sit around and feel sorry for myself- I'm going to use this opportunity to garner strength from all of these amazing people around me, kick cancer's ass, and get on with my life with a whole new outlook. I've heard people who have fought cancer say it- and now I understand. Kelly's mom said it. She's a recent breast cancer survivor and one of the most positive and loving people I know, and she's such a role model for me. The wife of the Dallas Stars GM has become such a role model for me. She is fighting cancer and was given two months to live two years ago. She is one of the kindest people I know and has been such a blessing and inspiration for me. She said it best in this story that ran on NBC. http://www.nbcdfw.com/video/?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_DFWBrand#!/news/sports/Stars-GM-And-Wife-Battle-Against-Cancer/232299781 "I used to like people, now I love people."

It's not a fun hand that I've been dealt, but everything happens for a reason and I truly am so glad it's happened to me and not to any other friend or family member that I love.  I can handle this. It's already made me a stronger, kinder, happier person and taught me to not sweat the small stuff in life. It's already changed me for the better. And I wouldn't be this new me if it weren't for cancer.

 But....I do miss my hair ;) XOXO

Chemo # 3/ GO STARS!

Yesterday was Chemo number three.... and tonight was the Stars watch party in my honor!!! The amazing gals from the Stars foundation (I used to work for the foundation) put together this watch party for me- they auctioned off autographed game used sticks wrapped with pink tape and autographed pucks and will donate all the proceeds to my medical fund. I'm so thankful for my Stars family and the Stars fans and all they have done to help and support me!! The Stars won their third game in a row tonight and went three for three on this last road trip! This makes my work life and my home life beautiful. Fans were out in full force tonight wearing their pink for me, and I just got home from post-hockey game dancing with my fabulous friends and mega-dancer-mom!! What a fun night. Bear with me as I post about chemo after dancing all night, wearing a stuffed Stars monkey on my back, and maybe imbibing just a bit :)  I even invited my new friend Angeline who I met on Monday (I met her because I crashed into her car...) and she came and had fun with us! She's such an angel. Cancer can't keep me from having fun! (Watch party pics below.)

Anywho, here's the report from yesterday. First I went in for blood work. It came back all good... counts were where they needed to be, and I was cleared for chemo. Then I met with my doctor and nurse. First she told me the news that my latest test for HER2 had come back negative. So I am in fact "Triple Negative", and I won't need Herceptin.  I don't really know whether to be excited or not, but I do know that means that my treatments will stay on the original 8 treatment plan, and that I don't have to take Herceptin for a whole year after the initial treatments are done. The one thing I liked about the idea of Herceptin is that it was supposed to help a lot with keeping recurrence away. BUT my amazing doctor is on the cutting edge of all kinds of breast cancer drugs; she eats, sleeps, and breathes breast cancer and works really hard for her patients, and she has a good drug in mind for me called Carboplatin. (Doesn't that sound like some sort of fish bait?) Anyways, she is going to a breast cancer conference in San Antonio the first week of December and will find out much more information based on the results of many clinical studies that have recently been completed to test Carboplatin's effects on Triple Negative breast cancer. Carboplatin is known to increase the PCR, or Pathological Complete Response rate in Triple Negative breast cancer patients. AKA- greater chances that cancer is going to be gone for good! I'm definitely on board with Carboplatin. If I get that it will start on my 2nd Taxol treatment, or my 6th overall treatment. I feel like I'm in really good hands and trust my doctor 100% on this!

Chemo Time 

So after I got the "HER2 not positive" report---- we proceeded with my exam. Once again, the doctors were very, very pleased!!! I have a hard time finding the tumor now and so did they! It's definitely still there, but again it has shrunk significantly. Something like 7.2x6 cm last visit, and 3.2x1 cm this visit. (And that was the doctor even fudging up a little bit because the first measurement was almost comical..... my nurse was laughing at the results!)  Isn't that amazing?!? These good reports have made me feel so much better about my prognosis and as my doctor said yesterday, "I'm kicking cancer butt!" Cheers to that!!

We talked a little about surgery which looks like it will be in February- (NHL olympic break so I'll have a break from work and I'll have my boyfriend to myself... silver linings!) Surgery will be a whole 'nother story so I'm just focusing on taking all my pills, exercising, staying positive, and letting the chemo kick this uninvited cancer out of my body. So all is well! Until next time!! XOXO

Julie

Molly and me at the Stars watch party

Molly, Callie, and I-- they won a stick and a jersey!!! 

This is my new friend Angeline, we met when I crashed into her car on Monday. :) 

A wreck of a Monday

Hi guys! It's been a few days since my last post so wanted to give another update. It's been a busy week and in case anybody was wondering my hair is still stuck to my head and I'm still really blonde. :)

So with all this "stuff" going on lately, my brain has been very jampacked full of thoughts, all the time. Combine that with what they call "chemo brain" and I've been quite loopy. Despite the loopiness, I'm trying to carry on a regular life and work as I normally would. But yesterday, I got a huge wake up call. I was driving to FSN to work on my show as I do every Monday. Lately I have really enjoyed my drives as I have some time to myself, I play some good music, and I try to relax. The week after my diagnosis I was having one of these "relaxing drives" from the Stars practice facility in Frisco out to FSN in Irving.. just driving, listening to Jack Johnson's new album (he makes me happy) and trying to clear my head. All of a sudden, a giant, like really giant, rock flew up on to my windshield and cracked my windshield from the top to the bottom and even left a little glass on the dashboard. It was scary. But I drove to work, called a company to come out and fix it, paid $150 dollars to have it fixed and went on with my life. Well, yesterday, my nice relaxing commute to work was rudely interrupted once again.

I was almost to work- listening to the new Hunter Hayes song- "Everybody has somebody but me" and thinking about how much I liked it. Who knows what else I was thinking about. My brain just flutters around with all kinds of random thoughts lately. So I was in the parking lot of the office building right next to mine, weaving my way through their lot so I could go through the back entrance up into our parking lot. It was raining, but not pouring. I pulled up to a four way intersection within the parking lot where I had a yield sign. There are never usually any cars crossing there, so I slow down a little and usually keep going. This time, a car came cruising by in front of me on it's way to turn on to Royal Lane and when I saw it and went to slam on the brakes it was too late. I crashed right into the side of the car. It was bad. Luckily I was OK, and so was the other driver. Somehow, even though I had just crashed into this girl's new Jeep Grand Cherokee, she was really really nice to me. I was a mess. I just kept apologizing over and over and I think I even blurted out "I have breast cancer!"... geez.  Don't know why- I guess I just felt like I needed to explain the waterworks. We sat there in the rain and waited for tow trucks to come as neither of our cars could drive away. My uncle Bill came and met met me and helped with the aftermath and then took me to Chick Fil A. (Obvioulsy.) I finally got to work about three hours later and managed to get all my work done before mom came to pick me up around 7 PM.
I've since talked with my insurance company and found out that I will just be responsible for my deductible, and her car is covered for up to $25,000 worth of damage. Unless something crazy happens, her car shouldn't be that bad. I got a nice pretty black Jeep Liberty similar to the Jeep Patriot that I drive. It'll probably be a few weeks before I get my car back but it's not going to be totaled or anything. It was not a fun experience and not something that I need to be dealing with, but it definitely gave me a wake up call! Although my head is jampacked with thoughts and sometimes I feel like it may as well float off like a giant balloon- I need to remember to keep my head in the game and stay focused. Cuz apparently wrecks still happen, even if you have cancer. I'm just glad I'm OK because crutches and cancer would not have been a good look... and I'm not sure my little body can handle anything else right now!

In other news, I'm getting ready for Stars hockey here at work and hoping to get some good rest tonight as tomorrow is chemo day number three. I'll go in around 9:30- get my blood work done- (that's where they test to make sure I have enough white blood cells to go forward with the chemo treatment)- then I'll meet with my doctors at 10:00 before going to do my work out and then I'll go for chemo. When I meet with the doctors, I'll find out how things are progressing and I'm looking forward to that. Last treatment my doctors were high fiving they were so happy with how much the tumor had shrunk. (yay!) I'm hoping for more of the same tomorrow!!! I'm also going to get some big news as my doctor will have decided if I'm going to be getting the drug Herceptin or not. You only get Herceptin if you test positive for HER2. (Human Epidural Growth Factor Receptor 2). My initial tests all came back as "triple negative" which meant that the HER2 test came back as negative, along with the other two types of receptors that are tested for, estrogen and progesterone. When they re-tested for HER2 it came back as leaning toward positive. So I think I'm kind of confusing.  The doctors have been meeting and discussing what to do with me- and that's what I will find out tomorrow. From what I understand, Herceptin is a very efficient drug, that when paired with chemo, makes your chemo turn into "super chemo", which can't be a bad thing, right? The down side to Herceptin is that it will add on another 2 initial treatments (4 more weeks of chemo) and then once that is over I would have to get Herceptin by itself for a year. That doesn't sound fun, but it's not a chemotherapy, it is a "target therapy" and it doesn't make your hair fall out or cause the extensive side effects like chemo does. I think it also helps a lot with decreasing the chances of recurrence of the cancer....which is obviously huge. So we shall see! Big day tomorrow. Time now for me to go watch this Stars game and get to work- and then I will be driving home very safely. :) Will try and update tomorrow with my news!

XO
Julie

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow.

I knew it was coming. But part of me was hoping that it wouldn't.... that maybe, just maybe, I'd be an exception to the standard, and maybe my hair wouldn't fall out. I mean, I think I'm an exception to the standard of inflammatory breast cancer, so why not the hair thing? Google told me (I googled it once and NEVER.WILL.AGAIN.... y'all please don't either.. google is the devil when it comes to cancer information)... but anyways the Google devil did tell me that the median age of somebody diagnosed with IFB is 60, and that it's prevalent among obese black women. I may have gained a pound or two this past year and rocked a pretty solid tan after my summer of fun, but... I'm pretty sure that I'm not any of those things, and here I am with IFB. But yeah, the hair thing. It happened, and it was horrible.

Obviously, nobody wants their hair to fall out, ever, but to be 28 years old, working in the competitive TV industry in a top 5 market in a city full of beautiful, and sometimes superficial women, well yeah, it sucks. And it has been bothering me more than anything else with this whole ordeal. Not only would it affect my emotions and confidence, but it literally affects my job. I can't be on TV- or try and get more jobs where I'm on TV- without hair. I'm no Robin Roberts. My nurse knew how much the inevitable hair loss was bothering me and informed me of a small business here in Dallas called Folicure. Folicure helped another patient of hers who was competing in beauty pageants while going through chemo, and she said they could help me too. So I called up John at Folicure who would become my new best friend. I told him my situation and he was so nice and told me I had called the right place, and that they would be happy to help me. I went in for a consultation that same week. (About two weeks ago.) I brought moral support with me in the form of one of my uber fashionable and super cute Dallas besties, Molly. (Molly is also my "blogrunner" and helped me get this thing going!! Love you Molls!) So she and I went in to meet the nice people at Folicure, and I left feeling so much better about what was a-head. ;) I lived the next couple weeks just as I normally would- I looked like myself and- most of the time, felt like myself, even though I had cancer. Chemo treatments started a week after my diagnosis. I'll blog more about chemo later. (Bet ya'll can't wait for that!) ;) Anyways, I was told that my hair would start coming out 14 days after my first treatment, (Which was also the day of my second treatment.) And guess what... I rocked the shit out of those last 14 days with my hair. I cherished every second of it. I did some amazing things in those 14 days. I walked in the Dallas Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure event, had lots of laughs with my amazing friends, had some very special out of town visitors, and even dropped the puck at the Dallas Stars game last week in honor of Hockey Fights Cancer night. (It was unreal!) Those 14 days were amazing, and I even think I was still a bit in denial that my hair was going to fall out. But it did.

I had an appointment booked at Folicure last Friday which would have been 16 days after my chemo treatment, 2 days past the estimated date of hair loss. The catch with the fabulous wig that I had ordered is that my head had to be shaved to put it on. Thursday night, the night I dropped the puck, I had close to a full head of hair and was feeling good about things. I wasn't ready to have my head shaved. I guess I got a case of "cold head" :) So I canceled Friday's appointment and scheduled a new one for Wednesday of the following week. (Today...eek)  Folicure was closed on Monday and I had to work a 10 hour day on Tuesday so Wednesday was the best possible option. A lot changed from Friday to Wednesday. My hair starting coming out in huge clumps, and I was filling up trashcan after trashcan of hair each day. It was disgusting. I salvaged a messy bun for a wedding I attended on Saturday night in Austin, but Sunday I woke up looking like a member of the Jamaican bobsled team.  I called over my brother's girlfriend and my best friend Jessie, and they helped me comb out the nappy mess on my head and gave me a hair cut to keep the clumping to a minimum. My sweet mom drove me back to Dallas that afternoon so I could go shoot a Halloween edition of my show at Six Flags Fright Fest. I felt like I could have been one of the monsters in one of their many haunted houses. Things got a lot worse on Monday, but I wore a cute hat to work, and by Tuesday it was finally real. I looked like a cancer patient. Wednesday morning's appointment couldn't come soon enough. So today was the day. My bf and I (yay, he's back in town!) arrived at Folicure this morning at 8:30 and I COULDN'T WAIT to have my head shaved. In about an hour and a half my head was shaved, a mold was made for my next "system" (not wig, system), and I had nice blonde hair once again. :) It's a permanent wig that was bonded on to my head. I'll get a new one in six weeks that is going to be custom made for me- but this one is going to be pretty good til then! It's a little too blonde- kind of Dolly Parton-esque in color, but it's pretty and it's hair and I'm so thankful for it. It feels like I'm just wearing a really tight skull cap, so it will take some getting used to, but I took a successful nap this afternoon so I'm hoping that sleeping won't be a problem. Let me just say this... all you people out there with hair, please don't let one day pass where you don't appreciate it! Sometimes it's the little things we take for granted in life. Once my hair starts to grow back I'm going to love on it so hard.

It's been a rough week but I'm happy and I'm healthy and I'm "hair"... and that's what matters.  Until next time! XOXO

The Diagnosis

How I Got Here.

It's been a month. The day was September 25, 2013. One of my favorite times of the year... as the brutal Texas summer was coming to an end and the start of the 2013 NHL season was just a week away. The new and improved Dallas Stars team was ready to take the ice to open the season on October 3rd, and after a summer filled with some fun trips to Canada, Mexico, Colorado, and Florida, I was ready to buckle down and dive into the new hockey season head first. It was going to be a big year for me. I was in ongoing talks about a possible new gig to be the rink side reporter for the Stars, and I was getting ready to go into my 5th season as producer/reporter for Stars Insider, a weekly show on the team. I couldn't wait. My career is my passion and I've been so lucky to work in Dallas covering professional teams since I graduated from Mizzou in 2007. After working as the team reporter for the Cowboys, doing sidelines for Ranger games for two seasons, covering NASCAR out at Tx Motor Speedway, and even hosting a fishing show for 5 years, I've really come to love this hockey thing the most. My life basically revolves around hockey season. My live-in boyfriend of three years is on the coaching staff for the Dallas Stars, too, and once the season kicks into gear- he goes everywhere the team goes. That's 82 games all over the US and Canada from October through April. He's lucky to get a day off a month. We're lucky to get 3 date nights a month. But that doesn't matter to us- we love what we do and we love the day to day thrill of coaching and covering an NHL team for a living. It's what brought us together and it keeps our lives exciting. And I always have my faithful feline (best) friend Cranberry to keep me company when he's away!

So, back to September 25th. The day that would change my life forever... the day I was diagnosed with  something I had never even heard of, something horrible, something that would "never happen to me", something called inflammatory breast cancer.

I guess it all started when I went to Florida over Labor Day for a lifelong friend's bachelorette party. One of my girlfriends since 6th grade, Lucy, who we love for her humor and bluntness, commented that my boobs had gotten bigger. I figured she had too many Pina Coladas. But looking back, it should have clicked then that something was wrong, why would my boobs randomly get bigger at age 28 on a beach vacation? But hey, I wasn't going to question it! I did fill out that new bandeau top quite well.....(on one side.)

I came home from that trip and noticed that my right breast was in fact enlarged, and when I went to inspect it, I felt something hard. It hurt. My boyfriend confirmed that I wasn't crazy, that something was a little "off", and that it was firmer than it should be. It hurt when I touched it. Since I'm 28 years old, I don't get regular mammograms. Every year when the doctor asks if I give myself breast exams,  I say yes. But I don't even know what that really means.  Yeah- I guess I see my boobs every day? They look good? I wish they were bigger? That was my self examination. I never thought twice about breast cancer. Why would I? It didn't run in my family... and I guess I'd worry about that when I turned 40. I had way more important things to worry about.

At first I tried to blame the pain on a hair straightening mishap that may have left a burn on my boob. (I know, it doesn't make sense.) But something made me call the doctor that day. I guess it was the pain combined with the swelling. It wasn't comfortable and I didn't like not knowing what was going on. So I called my OBGYN and got in quickly to see him. His initial reaction was that I had a cyst. That's how I'd self-googled-diagnosed- it, too. He said sometimes they go away on their own. But he wasn't positive that it was a cyst so he suggested a sonogram. I went in for my sonogram a couple days later. I knew what a sonogram was from the pics my friends were starting to send as they all got to see the first glimpse of their new babies. My first sonogram wasn't so special. The nice sonogram lady didn't have any clue what was wrong with me, but she didn't seem overly concerned. With the sonogram, though, she was able to rule out a cyst.  She called my doctor and suggested that perhaps it was an infection, and said that if so I could probably kick it with some antibiotics. My doctor wasn't convinced that it was an infection and suggested a biopsy. Until this point I was not worried. I figured it was just some weird thing that had happened to me that would go away. (FYI- other "weird things that have happened to me" include doing the splits in a fire ant bed in my cheerleading uniform in High School, busting my ear drum with a Q-Tip at a lake house party, and having what I thought was pink eye but turned out to be "Iritis", an eye disease common in 80 year olds, on prom night.) But when the doctor suggested a biopsy, I got nervous for the first time. I don't know much when it comes to medical terms, but I knew that a biopsy meant that there was at least some suspicion of cancer. I had been hesitant to tell my mom about any of this, in an effort to keep her from worrying about something silly, but I immediately called her after scheduling the biopsy. That phone call was the first of what would be many times that cancer made me cry. The first hospital I called said it would be 2 weeks before I could get in. I booked the appointment, slept on it, woke up and thought to myself "F that." If I need a biopsy I'm not waiting two weeks. My doctor suggested I call Dr. Sally Knox at Baylor Medical Center. I'm so glad I did. I described my symptoms to Dr. Knox's nurse, Deborah, (AKA Angel #1), and she had me booked for a biopsy 2 days later, then booked me for an appointment with Dr. Knox the following day to get the results. Come to find out, "she had a feeling" after my description on the phone, when nobody else knew what was going on.

Well, let me tell you this. That biopsy was perhaps the worst 30 minutes of my life. It was painful, scary, and torturous. Why they don't knock you out for that thing I don't know. The biopsy doctor, bless his heart, could tell I was worried and told me that although he couldn't say for sure, he felt that this was going to be "just an infection" based on what he was seeing. That's how scary and misleading this inflammatory breast cancer can be. It disguises itself as all kinds of things, none of which is how your stereotypical "cancer" presents itself. Needless to say, when the doctor told me not to worry, I took it to heart and I didn't worry. I went home, slept well, and almost forgot about my appointment the next day with Dr. Knox.

The following day, (September 25th) my mom and I arrived at the appointment, running late. (Shocker for me, I know.) I'd forgotten my "insurance card" (which was actually my information written out on an index card because I had lost the real one.... I never used it! I was healthy!)  and my mind was preoccupied with what I had to do for work that afternoon. I wasn't worried about a thing. I was even wearing flip flops with fish on them. That's how much I didn't care.  Once I was called in, Dr. Knox came into the room, did an exam, and then promptly stated that she had received my biopsy results about an hour ago, and matter of factly told me that I had cancer. I thought it was a joke. I think my exact  response was "Are you serious?" as my mom simultaneously screamed, "What?" (sidenote- I can't imagine having to tell people they have cancer every day. There is no right way to do that.) After our outburst of shock, Dr. Knox confirmed the news, and then gave us 10 minutes to ourselves. We cried, prayed, and cried some more. She came back in and told me that they believed it was "inflammatory" breast cancer, a very rare and aggressive form of breast cancer. (Oh, goody. As if it wasn't bad enough.) She told me that the tumor was about the size of my breast and said they would start chemo as soon as possible. Then I would need a mastectomy followed by radiation. She scheduled me for a PET scan that following Friday so we could see if the cancer had spread. (It had, but only into the right lymph nodes.)

My mom and I left the doctor in shock; speechless and numb. So we did what anybody who just found out they have cancer would do- we went to pick up a package at FedEx in downtown Dallas. That may seem odd, but we needed something to do, and that was our next task at hand for the day.  I realize now that deciding to continue our day with that little errand was perhaps a microcosm of my current mindset about this whole thing. It's shitty. It's shocking. It's horrible. And even though I'm sitting here at work with my hair falling out and hidden under a baseball cap, I'm still sitting here at work. I'm going to get on with my life.... and oh yeah, my life is not going anywhere.