The first

When I posted this photo in 2009 on Flickr, never ever did it cross my mind that I was taking a picture that would become my story.



I'm not even sure how to start this story.. Once upon a time there was a girl that discovered a skin dimpling in her right breast. Or maybe I should start with a date? July 12 is a day I will never forget.

I wasn't really alarmed by what I had felt. But after a few weeks I started to feel something hard underneath my skin and it also started to hurt sometimes. My doctor told me to go to the hospital and made an appointment for me. They told me I had to do a Mammogram, an echo and a biopsy. It was painful, but not that bad. I have to tell you here, I never ever thought it would be cancer. I'm 30 years old. It's just not something you expect. It doesn't run in my family either. But then I was called back in and it was bad news. It was cancer. The lump in my breast is a tumor. Well my world just collapsed. It was like a bad dream and I wanted to wake up.

I knew right away this is something I'll never forget. This is going to influence the rest of my life… This is going to stick with me and I'll be scared forever. Things will never be the same again. I will always be scared of the cancer, now that it's been in my body.

So then I went through the MRI to check the rest of my body/breasts. A few days later I had to go back for another appointment and they told me that I will have surgery within the next 3 weeks and they will remove the tumor and that I get to keep my breast (yay). No spreading was seen (another yay), but they have to check again during the operation, just to be safe. They will then have to do more testing and determine what type of cancer it is, which stage etc. I will have to recover from surgery and then get another appointment and they will tell me about my follow-up plan. Which, considering my young age, most likely will be radiation therapy, chemo and hormone blocking therapy.

I guess I should live day by day.. and just hold on to the good things. Take one step at a time. Obviously I’m in for a hell of a ride. It’s not going to be pretty. But hey you never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have! I’m going to kick this $%&@#$* disease in the ass!