Preparing for surgery

Finished my last big chemotherapy treatment. I guess it should feel like a big stepping stone, except that I'm back in the same chair each week continuing with a different treatment. So it doesn't feel quite like an ending to that yet. The treatment so far has very much had a positive effect on my tumor. The doctor can no longer measure it physically at this point. She was so pleased with my strength and progress and admitted pushing me very hard with my treatment. With a hug she celebrated my attitude and success so far. And so, now it is time to prepare for surgery. I don't know what's the more daunting task: having enough time to mourn the changes about to take place, the trip to the hospital and back and all of the recovery required, considering the enormous demands and commitment on my family and friends, facing life ahead with alot of uncertainty, stopping for just a moment and realizing how fast this came into our lives and changed EVERYTHING. So many things I can't even mention. The One thing it has not changed is me...the real me...not what everyone sees on the outside for now...the tired me, the bald me, the sickly me, the medicated forgetful me, the quiet me. It's all the things everyone is putting up with for now while I work on the inner me, physically, emotionally. So many things that they don't tell you about breast cancer up front. Each woman's journey is so different and yet so many assume it's all the same. I've taken on researching everything and questioning everything I have to go through. It's been conflicting at times needing to make a choice that is something I might not normally take on, but instead it turns out to be the best choice that will save my life in my case. This is where I take on a new cause in my life to support work that will offer more effective choices of treatment over lack of choices and death sentences to not just this disease, but cancer. Let's stop labeling and judging how and why people get cancer, and spend our efforts finding out how cancer is triggered to find cures. We can eat right, live a healthy lifestyle, and it just doesn't matter...cancer does not discriminate. Society has chosen to judge how some people get cancer, but what' more important and helpfull? To care and understand and learn about the mysterious things that come along and bring us harm and find ways to deal with them? Or finding ways to label, find fault or blame. Sometimes cancer just happens. One in eight women now will wake up to face breast cancer.
However well I become, however long I survive...know I live my each day to the fullest. Not because of all of this, it has always been my philosophy that life is short and precious. I will keep fighting and hopefully all those around me will wait patiently for me to get "back to myself". I will be walking my first Komen walk with my dog Maggie on the 18th of October, the day before my surgical consult appointment. It will be a good day to focus, to think, to press onward.