Dear Cancer, did you get the memo that I’m not your girl? I can’t be. I’m healthy. I climb mountains. I run circles around men in the gym. I single parent, work full-time and can out last a 25-year-old on a Friday night. I eat organic for fucks sake! YOU MUST HAVE THE WRONG PERSON – DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH EXTRA I PAY FOR THE NON GMO STRAWBERRIES?

Did I mention I’m entirely too young for this?

I see you missed the memo.

So here we are.

“have you felt this lump?” said my OBGYN on a routine exam. I recoiled back in horror as I squeaked out the phrase “I have no idea what you’re talking about”

41 years and somehow I’ve reached this point with my worst medical damage having been self-inflicted by overestimating my own badassery. (torn acl, I’m looking at you)

She guided my hand to my own breast while assuring me that it was probably nothing based on the fact the lump rolled through the flesh as my fingers probed at it. “probably a cyst” she said. I nodded and smiled while immediately changing the mammogram appointment I had scheduled in October to the very next available appointment.

I nervously texted my girlfriends – “you’ve all had a lump, right? It’s nothing! Everyone has one!” along with the partners who have been up close and personal with mr. lumpy himself. “you never felt anything, right?”

Everyone assured me weird lumps happen all the time. Partners assured me my breasts are perfect*

*Perhaps this was not the word used, however I’m just going to remember my boobs as fucking perfect, thank you.

Fast forward 24 hours. I didn’t think much of this ‘dumb cyst” until the air changed at the polyclinic the moment my breasts were squished into the mammogram machine. I started crying. I knew. I glanced at the machine and I KNEW. I sat in the waiting room while they “fixed the ultrasound machine” frantically sending gchats to a friend telling him: “I knoooow. I just know! fuck, I know!”

He ever so lovingly told me to calm down and stop being a spaz.

(ps, Nate -I’m going to use my favorite words here and say “I was right”-you owe me)

The ultrasound tech asked if I was fatigued. I snapped back “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ASKING ME THAT? I’M FINE! I mean, I obviously didn’t use the F bomb because I’m a lady, but that was the final thing I needed to KNOW. She stammered out a lame response, and with that reaction, I was done. Good as dead.

The radiologist entered the room and his face will forever be burned in my memory. “It’s cancer” he smugly told me. Like a Honda mechanic telling someone their Civic was due for an oil change. I reacted as one would expect. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t presented right. Yes, he has been reported to the Polyclinic chief of radiology.

The next 24 hours were dark. I half collapsed in the parking lot on Madison while sending nonsense texts to my text besties. I knew nothing about cancer. I assumed this was my death sentence. I’d be frail and bald. Everything I’d seen on TV. THIS IS HOW IT ENDS… my life that I love was over. I went home and cried. I cried at every item I spotted of my daughters and how she would live without a mommy. I cried at how much I loved the arches of my doors in my apartment and how I’d miss them when I died. I cried over a pair a shoes because I’d never wear them out dancing again. DID I MENTION IT WAS DARK?

September 5th 2018. The day the lights went out.

September 6th 2018. When we raise the curtains and start a rough draft of the next chapter.

so here we are.