For those of you who did not follow my journey on Instagram I wanted to share here as part of my goal of awareness. When I found the lump I had no symptoms and no reason to think I had cancer. I’m 38 yrs old with only a distant relative with breast cancer so my risk factor wasn’t higher than the average. The biggest thing I learned since finding the lump is to try to stay calm and to be proactive. If I hadn’t found the lump when I did I might not have been so lucky and it could have spread outside the duct, then possibly to my lymph nodes and further.
Here’s the thing, when you hear those words, “you have cancer,” it is scary. The unknown is scary, was scary, but as I learned more, and learned what type of breast cancer I had, it made me feel empowered. I am not defined by my cancer, I define my cancer by how I react to and deal with it, and I was a survivor even before I had it removed and received treatment.
I was lucky because my cancer was contained and small, I caught it early, it was non-invasive, and required minimal treatment after it was removed. My thought process was to get as much information possible to make the best treatment plan and get it taken care of asap so I could move on to the next chapter. My surgery to remove the tumor was on November 28th, 2018, and I’m happy to say it was stage 0, so it hadn’t spread outside of the duct. I underwent 34 treatments of radiation but was lucky enough to avoid chemotherapy.
I saw this as an obstacle not an impasse and I came out on the other side stronger and more informed about my body. I am back to being the mom I need to be for my kids, the wife I need to be for my husband, but most of all I am back to being the best me I can possibly be. I am a survivor.
As for my artwork, I made a small series of paintings inspired by my journey, which is what inspired the piece in this post. The pink dots refer to the small, bright pink tattoos I have that were used to guide the radiation treatments.
All the pink dots, 2019, acrylic on canvas