On This Day

I don't usually pay attention to my "On This Day" things on Facebook, but I've gotten pretty sucked in over the past month or so, watching 2015 me blissfully post pictures of my kitties and statuses about TV shows, having no idea what was about to be discovered in my right breast. It's like a slow motion trainwreck, watching my life about to come to a screeching halt. It was on this day, February 4th, that I went to work as usual and then to barre, where I chatted with an acquaintance about trying to make our husbands come to a class on Valentine's Day. I went about my evening and got in bed to read, and a few minutes later sat straight up and made shocked, terrified eye contact with Ben. I still don't know how I noticed that tiny lump at all. I can't figure out what I would have been doing to feel it; my best guess is that my book, a heavy one from the library, was resting on my chest pushing my hand into the underside of my breast. Or that it was my Higher Power at work.

A lot of people date their Cancerversary from the official biopsy results and diagnosis, or from the day of surgery when it was removed. But my life changed forever in that instant. Never for one second did I believe it wasn't cancer. I guess that's the hypochondriac in me - most people would play the odds and assume that as a 38 year old woman with no family history, it was surely benign - but as it turns out, my hypochondriac instincts were not wrong. (Finally! Vindication!)

So here we are, one year later. One Herceptin treatment to go before I'm sent back into the world like a normal person who only goes to the doctor every few months. Not too long ago I would have called it "a year from hell," and of course it's not been any picnic, but I guess like with any trauma, our minds do a good job of helping us forget (or block out) the worst of it. Somehow I have gotten used to this state of being, as a Cancer Person, and forgotten what it was like before.

At the Cancer Center they make you fill out these forms with each visit, rating your overall distress on a scale of 0 to 10. For the first time yesterday, I couldn't think of a single thing to be distressed about. I was feeling ZERO distress. How is it possible? 

So I guess I've turned a corner. For now.