Mile Marker Two

If you'll look out your window to the left you'll see we're coming up on Mile Marker Two. It was a year ago today that the test results from the breast biopsies came back and the initial diagnosis was confirmed: I had breast cancer. What in the world? I have breast cancer?! At thirty-nine and with no history of it on either side of my family, though Janis found out in her extensive studying on the subject that the majority of women diagnosed with breast cancer have no family history of the disease, this was quite a shock.

The radiologist who gave the initial diagnosis of cancer was an older man and, honestly, this is one of those times when you want someone who has been reading mammograms forever to be reading yours. As I like to say, the he hadn't just decided late in life, 'Hmm, what to do, what to do... Well, I could work at Wal-Mart this summer as a greeter, or, I could be a radiologist. I think I'll give radiology a whack'.

When I was given the images of the mammograms and the ultra-sound to bring to the appointment at the Mayo--- that's a mile marker for a later time--- and tried to see what it was that he saw that indicated it was cancer, I was ever-the-more thankful for his years of experience and sharp eye. I knew that of the five mammogram images there was on one image a spiculation, a spike-y, needle-like spot, that could been seen that indicated cancer. Dag-nab-it if it didn't take multiple looks through the images each time I showed it to someone to find that spot it was so subtle. Thank goodness there are people who make it their life's work to interpret these things!

You may recall that I had asked in the initial appointment with the radiologist two days earlier what he thought the lump was. His sharing his thoughts, that it was cancer, gave me the opportunity to shift my thinking and to decide that no matter what the final test results showed--- and I really, really hoped he was wrong--- but that no matter what happened only good and love was going to come from it.

That shift in my thinking- deciding for myself how this was going to go- was the most critical decision I made on this unexpected journey. I decided it was going to be a path filled with good and love. I chose to have a positive outlook. I said 'I can do it'.

It's a choice we all have each day. We each create our world with the eyes we choose to see it through.

It's not that there aren't crabby folks in my day (sometimes it's me), and that stupid, frustrating stuff doesn't happen, and that, at times, my belief in the grand goodness of life waivers more than I'd like. It's that, most days, I choose to see the world as a good place filled with good people doing their best to make their way through this lumpy, imperfect, beautiful, amazing world.

So parts of me have been removed, so I take more medication than I ever imagined I would, so I have to stretch my left arm to retain range of motion. So so so. So I'm here. With you. And that, my dear people, is a mighty fine place to be.

With love,
From the gal who believes the cup is (sometimes even more than) half full,
Karen