Day 99 - A look back

I have been thinking a lot lately about that bleak first week of my diagnosis.  The days when we did not know what we were facing, when Doug and I literally holed up in our bedroom, terrified.

The turning point came in a single, long day.  A Thursday.  From a nurse, who I believed.

It started with another test.  This time to take a biopsy of my lymph nodes in order to confirm or deny cancers spread there.

At that point I had spent a lot of time with the same group of people.  The nurse who performed my initial mammogram, the Dr. who did the biopsy on my breast.  Let's just say I would love to play poker with each and every one of them, they sort of gave away their hands, (mine actually), each time we met.

But when asked by me to tell it to me straight, they went mute. 

And then finally.  A nurse named Susan.  She took pity on me.  She snuck my chart into a small room, and read it to me, and translated what it said. 
Two things stuck with me.

1.  "This is not a death sentence".
2.  "Someday you will wake up, and cancer will not be the first thing you think about.  I promise".

And then, like so many after her, she told me her story.  She had been a 40 year old mother of two when she received the same diagnosis. 

These are the small graces you receive in cancerland. 

And they happen to me every day.