We were getting ready for a motorcycle trip and my 56th birthday - how exciting and what fun lay ahead. Except, for the lump I found - quickly, trip cancelled and all the test were run, lumpectomy, radiation and chemo.
Over the next 5 years I was the perfect cancer patient. That precious 5 year mark of being cancer free. My last visit to the oncologist, my last PET scan and ............. here we go again........cancer cells on the PET scan. This time a bilateral mastectomy and chemo (again)!
Cancer as my husband calls it is a "Club that no one wants to join, but when you do, you make the greatest friends." I have learned that I like "Tea Parties", we have a lovely tea once a month. Yes, most of the members met through breast cancer.
I have traveled the United States on a motorcycle (back seat), we saw all of the lower 48 except Washington and Oregon and some of Canada. All of this while carring two (one was for swiming) sets of prosthesis and being bald. Motorcycle people are very friendly, even more so when a woman gets off the bike, takes her helmet off and there is a shining scalp.
Yes, I only wore a wig once - at my granddaughter's wedding. She said "You do not look like my Mimi, just take the wig off and be yourself"
Being normally shy, I never would have had the friends I have made nor experienced so much,had it not been for breast cancer. Cancer made me appreciate life much more and enjoy each day to the fullest. I now know what is really important in life, what to appreciate, what to enjoy!
Tampa, FL