Here is what I have to say to you, breast cancer.

Got that?

2 days ago my cousin, who is a year younger than me, found out she has breast cancer. Yesterday, she found out that it's also spread a bit to her lungs and bones. That's the bad news. The good news (via my grandma - so not very descriptive) is that it is some rare form that starts with an "r" and tends to respond well to treatment.

This cousin and I were close as close can be when we were kids. Our relationship (along with all our other cousins) is part of the reason moving to Wisconsin felt so easy to me. I want our kids to grow up with cousins their age all over the place and family nearby. Even though I had that as a kid in Oregon, now everyone has kind of scattered and are in different stages of life (or jail, if your name is Craig and you're a total douche). Anyway, when I moved to California we kind of lost touch. We picked it back up again to a minimal degree while I was stationed in Washington, but once I left there (in 2000), I honestly don't think we've spoken since. Maybe once while I was home on leave, but that was it.

Fried chicken and chocolate milk. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I miss her. I haven't even seen pictures. I probably wouldn't recognize her if I passed by her on the street. It has always made me a little sad, but even more so now.

My family really isn't that big, but so far you've got my grandma (mom's stepmom), my great aunt (dad's aunt), and now my 29 year old cousin. I'm sure there are more too, I'm just too distant from so much of my family to know about it.

So anyway, breast cancer. F you. I mean, thanks for not being you last fall with that big friendly lump in my breast, but I'm tired of seeing you everywhere. I know a lot of my friends are seeing far too much of you too.

False alarm! Happy dance!

It's not cancerous tissue. They couldn't tell what it was, just what it was not. This is great news!

I still wonder what it is, and I still want it gone, but at least it's not cancer.





How great would it be to dance like a dork ALL OVER THE WORLD?

What is on my mind T-8.5 hours from boob-mashing:

(Prepare for a little irrationality)

What if it's cancer and I have to have a mastectomy? Where do they put the boob? Will it be in a jar somewhere a la Grey's Anatomy coffee table kidney?

What if I have to have chemo? Will this affect me having kids later? Will I have to save some eggs in case? What if I have to have a kid now if I ever want to be able to have them? What if my shit doesn't work in the first place? Am I going to find that out soon too? Will we even have the capacity to make these kinds of decisions right now if we have to? Clearly the very little Oprah I watch is still way too much.

If it's nothing, will they take the lump out anyway? Because I want it gone. Will that leave a scar? It's ok if it does, I'm just curious.

Will it affect breastfeeding if I can ever have kids? Would I have even been able to breastfeed in the first place? Will I ever have the chance to find that out?

If it's removed, can I see it?

What if I can't work for awhile? What will happen to my job? What will my boss do? I don't get sick days or vacation or anything. There is no one else to work for me. How will I pay my bills during that time? Will I fall behind in grad school?

Am I a fucking breast-cancer ignorant douchebag?

blah blah blah.

:::insert incoherent Charlie Brown adult's voice here:::

If it's cancer...I'm SO kicking cancer's ass.

If it's not...well...then YAY!

I need to live out loud.

I have had this master plan to become a better (or at least more regular) blogger and to finally do that now 3 months late post about our wedding and to get all my thoughts off my chest and out of my head where they have been marinating lately. I'm not usually one to keep my life-happenings secret or quiet or to keep my opinion to myself. But that is what has been happening. Things have been sitting there...marinating. Turning me into Debbie Downer or at least a heaping pile of stress.

I bring this up because I was getting caught up on a message board I have with some friends here and there was a discussion about how long you should (or they decided to) wait before telling people about their pregnancy. There was a lot of 6-8 weeks, even more 10-12...some reasons were to make sure everything was ok, it would affect their job if people knew, or a flurry of other very good reasons - like keeping their privacy as long as possible.

My answer to the question, because I know myself: I am willing to bet that I will tell the entire world the second I find out.

Not to mention I would be ridiculously excited and nervous and a ton of other emotions that I would never be able to hide. I know some of you are starting to think I might be trying to tell you I'm pregnant. I'm not.

But...

I do have something going on that I've been really trying hard not to talk about because I don't know anything yet. I'm a little bit afraid that saying something about it so publicly before knowing anything makes me seem a little attention-whorish. I can assure you that that is not the case. I'm a very open person about the things I've gone through in my life - they are why I am the person I am now, no matter how bad or good. By suddenly not being open, I feel like I'm hiding things from people I care about or that might care about me and like I have to watch what I say and keep track of who I've been open with and who I have not.

That has to stop now. It's not "me."

Plus, I have something that I have a lot of thoughts about and absolutely do not want to torment any one specific person with my paranoia and worst case scenario plans for the future. I'd rather just vent them here and let you all quietly think I'm crazy.

About a week and a half ago, I found a lump in my left boob (breast? Sounds so...proper. I'm hardly what you'd call proper). It's good sized. It's not rock hard, but it's pretty dense. Say you cut an egg in half lengthwise...it's about that size, and seems to be attached to my chest wall deep in the...boob.

I scrambled to get recs to an OB/GYN with my new married chick medical insurance and saw my shiny new doctor 2 days ago on Monday. She said that with my family history and my age, there is "a good chance" that it is nothing. But...it is significant enough that it definitely needs more testing. She sent me to radiology with orders for a mammogram and ultrasound.

Wednesday, Oct 29th, ass-crack of dawn. That is my hot date with the boob-smasher.

Am I scared? Yes. Terrified, actually. I don't scare easily...but cancer? Cancer is fucking scary.

I know there are a lot of (Ok, maybe only a few...) other things that it could possibly be, and I'm hoping and praying for those. But...I can't stop myself from the "what if's" - it's what I do. It's how I prepare for the worst. It's also how I set myself up for a pleasant surprise when it's something better than the worst.

For those of you who know me and are learning about this for the first time, I'm sorry you heard about it this way, but at least it's still the early clueless phase. So now you know as much as I do and I can stop acting like I don't have anything freaking me out.

I feel better already.