There’s been something that I’ve wanted to share on here for a couple of weeks now, but I had to wait for the right time. Technically, this isn’t my news to share so I had to wait to get the ok to put it out in the world.
My mom has breast cancer.
I found out on the day of the rainy beach trip and the Reckless Love wine event. Between the beach and the event, my mom called me to give me the news. I had no idea that she had been seeing a doctor about this, so it came as a complete shock to me.
I pretty much cried for 3 days. But then I realized that crying does no good for me or my mom. So I’m working on being tough about it.
My mom had a mastectomy already. She did amazing in the surgery. The original plan was for her to be there 23 hours, but she managed to leave about an hour after the surgery was done (since I couldn’t be there that day, my mom and I FaceTimed as soon as she was in recovery). It was about a month ago.
When I was in Tahoe recently, I got to see the scar (and I think it is possibly the most awesome scar that I’ve ever seen). And my mom gets to wait until after my brother’s wedding next week to start chemo, so that’s very good news. I would hate for her to be feeling side effects of chemo during the wedding.
My mom has been so amazing since finding out. She’s taking everything in stride. She knows that she’ll lose her hair during chemo, so she already went out and got a wig that looks just like her regular hair.
When my mom put it out to all of her Facebook friends (which was the moment I was allowed to start sharing this publicly), she wrote a short note describing what’s going on. But she ended the note by saying “I did not have a choice in getting this disease, but I do have a choice to live a happy, full life everyday”.
I think that is an important message for anyone. I try to focus on staying positive all the time, even when things don’t seem to be going my way. And I’m aware that positive thinking can do wonders when you are dealing with illness. So I decided to get my mom and I matching bracelets to remind us to stay positive.
It will be important for me to stay positive while I’m not able to be with my mom for every doctor’s appointment (which I’d like to be so I can try to understand this all). And while my mom has been super positive since the beginning, I know that with chemo and radiation ahead, she might have some tough times. So by having this bracelet on (which I wear every single day and only take off to sleep), we can focus on the good and not the bad.
While I might sound like things aren’t super wonderful with my mom right now, that’s not true. She technically does have cancer, but in the month since she’s had her mastectomy, she has done some truly badass things. Such as driving our off-road jeep (and making me bounce so hard in the seat that I came home with bruises), rowing a boat with our dog inside, numerous hikes (I can’t even think of counting them all), and won all her tennis matches since her surgery.
I know that many of you reading this don’t know my mom personally. But when I told people who do know her about her cancer, they all pretty much said the same thing. My mom is the toughest person out there. If anyone could beat cancer (and completely kick its ass), she could.
I promise to keep you all updated on my mom’s journey. The one thing everyone in my family has learned over the last month is that cancer is not a straight line journey. There will be some twists and turns. But after all the twists and turns, I can’t see anything else for my mom in the future other than beating this.
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