My Hero

My first guest post shared earlier this week at My Unrehearsed Life :: the month of October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This message is too important not to share. twice.


It is hard to find the right words to say when a friend calls you to tell you they found something on a recent mammogram. 

Do you make light? I'm sure it's nothing. Speculate? Could be just  a cyst. I had another girlfriend that had a cyst. It was nothing.

I chose to do neither. Truthfully, I didn't know what to say.

Call me the moment you know.

My friend is so beautiful. 

She is stylish.funny.sweet.kind. Full of Life.

The kind of person who everyone wants to be around. The life of the party one might call her.

The diagnosis came back.

It was a tumor. 

Further testing would confirm that it was indeed cancerous. Even further testing would confirm that it was the kind of breast cancer that has a high probability of spreading.

I tried to learn everything I could. I learned jargon I had never heard of before.

The internet is both a blessing and a curse in times like these. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Information overload scared me. I am sure that it scared her as well although she never said a word.

But she did her homework. And then some.

She changed her diet.her lifestyle.her way of thinking almost altogether.

This was cancer after all.

It didn't seem fair to me. This vivacious woman who had everything. The same woman who suffered the loss of her very best friend not so many years ago to...cancer.

Why did it choose her? Why?

We have all heard the statistics. I don't claim to be an expert but I know that in my lifetime, many of the women I know will be diagnosed.

Some will have tougher battles than others.

Some will win. And some may lose.

it.is.awful.

My beautiful friend opted for radical surgery.

She tried to make me understand although I didn't need to.

I knew she should and would do what was right for her. For her body. For her healing.

She underwent a double-mastectomy and it went amazingly well.

It is incredible really how someone so tiny could be so strong.

We had lunch sometime afterwards. Talked. Walked. Shopped.

It was almost like everything was back to normal.

Although for her, it never will be.

I am sure that cancer changes you in ways I hope to never understand.

Outside she is still the very same beautiful.outgoing.funny girl.

I don't know how she feels inside.

She had reconstructive surgery a few short weeks ago.

It went perfectly. She is healing.resting.happy with the results.
I check in on her often.
At times, I still don't know what to say. Too much. Too little.

I reached out to her to ask if it was o.k. to write this post.
She said she had no secrets. And would tell. Should tell. Everyone she knows.
She doesn't know it.
But she is my hero.