It Was A Dark and Stormy Night...

Life for the blissful newlyweds has been a bit rough but we're finding our way through this patch of darkness. On August 8th, I found out that I had a small breast tumor, which turned out to be cancerous, and needless to say, it took us both by surprise.

I'm on the mend after a lumpectomy, but it took a while to get here. We're now waiting to see what the further treatment will be. I'll have an idea tomorrow if it's just more than radiation. It's early stage, hasn't spread, it's very treatable and the tumor is out of me. Thank God. At this point now it's all about prevention of recurrence-- at least that's my understanding.

It's not what neither David nor I expected to deal with so early into our marriage, well to be honest, ever, but it's here and we have to do our best to get through it. We were hoping that we'd be seeing fertility doctors in our quest to start a family; not breast surgeons, oncologists and others to treat my early stage breast cancer.

I am going to admit right now that I'm a big baby about all this. My emotions are a wash of rage, sadness, hate, self-pity and even a bit of acceptance and peace. I'm doing my best to stay strong, hold onto my faith in myself, my faith in God and others who are entrusted to handle my medical care and treatment. I have faith in David. He's strong, but I know this isn't easy for him. David and I talk-- I hope we will always continue to talk-- but it's not easy sometimes. How can it be easy to watch the person you love struggle with something potentially life threatening and devastating?

Until we knew it hadn't spread or how bad it was, for nearly a week, I was sure I was going to die. I cried every day. Now, I believe that I'm going to be ok, but I think the fear of it coming back will always lurk somewhere deep down inside of me, no matter what treatment follows. The story of my first MRI is quite a drama. That will probably come another day with the rest of the early details of this tale of woe.

My faith in God wavers from the size of a mustard seed to something bigger. I'm shaky but I am doing my best to lean on Him, give Him my fears, anxieties and worries while I go through all this. I am not angry at God, but I do want to know why this happened to me. I wish I knew if I could have prevented it from happening and I do wish that I could return this unwanted, unwelcome gift. I cannot re-gift it or exchange it either. I hope in time I will know what it's purpose in my life is. Maybe it's a wake up call. The days are sweeter now. Life is precious and cannot be taken for granted.

Of course, there are good days, days when I'm feeling like I'm in limbo and days that everything is going so fast and I feel lost. Most days have been good, but the negative, scary thoughts manage to creep in and let in the darkness. I get sad all the time and I am grieving for so many things. I'm doing the best to hold onto my dreams because those are getting me through the worst of it.

I'm blessed to have David and my family. They've been there for me. David most of all. My parents are devastated and worried. It's really hard for me to be around my parents right now. I'm trying not to lean on them so much and I've taken out much of my frustration and anger out on them and I've put all my fears, worries and burdens onto David.

Still, anyone is a potential punching bag right now, but I'm actually doing my best to let out my anger, sadness and other emotions right now. I think it's better to let those things out than bottle them up.  Maybe that's why I'm writing out this post tonight.  Now if only my characters would talk to me, maybe I could start writing fiction again. That was always my biggest stress reliever.

This was supposed to be a post about other stuff going on in our lives, but right now, this is the biggest thing going on in our lives. And while things are a bit up in the air as far as what the next step treatment wise is, the surgery is over and now we'll see what's left tomorrow. I might have some difficult decisions to make, but I think with a lot of soul-searching, prayer and research, I'll make the right one. There might is still  hope that we can still have a child of our own and we can definitely adopt a child when all is said and done. I'm still looking to the future and going to keep fighting to kick this cancer's ass out of our lives because I've got dreams I'm living for. I just want it all to be ok so that in a few years we'll look back and this will be a distant memory.