From the beginning…

I remember I was making eggs. This isn’t an important detail but I’ll never forget having to pull a stool over to sit down and finish making them, because I couldn’t stand up after reading my PET scan results. I’d had two weeks of a mammogram, breast MRI, CTs, MRIs, PET scans, and 5 horrible biopsies on the same day. After I found the lump, we went straight for a mammogram. Things spiraled from there, and it was a wild whirlwind of tests, appointments, and meetings.

December 8th, 2018, just weeks before Christmas, while my two older children were at school, and my kindergartner had stayed home for some reason. I can’t remember, but I was making eggs. My results were uploaded to my portal, and I started googling words. I didn’t know what half the words I was reading meant. I didn’t know who to call, what to think, what to do, what to say or how to finish the eggs. I made a call to my husband that I needed him to come home. I thought for about 5 minutes about not telling him, or anyone. Maybe it would all just go away if no one knew. Maybe no one else would be sad or feel the gut punch I’d just felt if I just didn’t say anything. Then it hit me. The eggs. I had to finish the eggs for my five year old and I needed help. I was about to need a lot of help.

How could I talk to him if I couldn’t stop crying? How could I break my husband’s heart when he walked in the door? He could tell by my voice on the phone, I’m sure, that it was bad, but he had no idea how bad it could really be, and neither did I until the statistics and google results started swimming in my head. Somehow, I finished the eggs. I pulled it together and fed my little guy breakfast. I told my husband the news. It was Triple Positive, hormone, HER2, and it was metastatic. It had spread from my breast and lymph nodes to my liver, my right hip, my C spine, and my T spine. I had a less than 20% chance of making it 5 years…