In August of 2018, I was sitting on my couch watching TV and felt a shooting pain in my left breast. It wasn’t excruciating but for some reason it just felt odd. I was like, huh, that was weird. For the next couple of weeks it kept happening at random times. My first thought was that it might be my heart. I’ve always had high cholesterol and at the time I stopped taking cholesterol meds due to the side effects. Anyhow, I made an appointment for a physical and a Pap smear with breast exam.

in October I go to my dr appt and the dr wasn’t my usual PCP. She did the exam and said that my breasts were very dense and that my left was more dense than my right. I told her I’d like to schedule a mammogram for piece of mind because of the weird pains. I also had noticed for years that my left breast was slightly larger than my right but was told over the years that it was normal. After I told her this, she said, and I quote, “you’re too young for a mammogram (I was 39) and your insurance won’t cover it. Your breasts are just dense”. I told her I’ll pay out of pocket because something didn’t seem right.

She scheduled the mammogram for me at a women’s clinic for the following month. When I got to the appt, they did a “screening” mammogram which I learned was very basic and not really looking for anything in particular. That mammogram came back clear. I still felt like something wasn’t right but I told myself that I was going to get through the holidays and deal with it in the new year.

fast forward to January 17, 2019. I’m in a cruise to Mexico with my husband and about 20 friends. We’re getting ready to go to the captains dinner and I’m in the restroom doing my hair. I was topless in front of the mirror and raised my arms to put my hair up. As soon as I did this, the whole side of my left breast puckered up and looked very lumpy. I freaked out! I ran out of the restroom crying and showed my husband. He was like, stop freaking out, we’re in the middle of the ocean and we’ll deal with it when we get home! Needless to say, my anxiety damn near ruined that tip.

The day we got back, I called my PCP and told him what happened and said I need another exam and mammogram. He scheduled me for February 20, 2019. I go see him, he does the exam and says that everything feels normal. He said I did in fact have dense breasts but if anything I might have fibrocystic breast disease. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “look, there’s definitely something wrong here. I’m telling you right now, if you brush me off and I die, I will haunt you for the rest of your life!!” I said it in a joking manner (kinda) but my point was made and he decided to schedule me for an ultrasound.

I went back to the women’s clinic and they did the ultrasound. I got a call back soon after saying that they saw a tiny spot but it was very small and probably no biggie deal. They wanted to schedule a biopsy to make sure. I scheduled the biopsy for March 25, 2019. I went in and as they were taking the tissue out, they just kept saying that it’s most likely nothing, 80% of women just have benign cysts, etc, etc. Like I thought I was for sure in the clear but still had this lingering doubt. It was weird.

March 27, 2019. I had just got to work at 8am and was getting my day started. I was chatting with my coworker and my phone rang. I pick it up and it’s my PCP. He says, “Heather?” And I respond, “hi Dr. Jones!” I was waiting for him to tell me everything is fine. Except he didn’t. “I got your biopsy results back. It’s cancer.” I couldn’t speak. I started crying. My coworker came to my desk and held me like a baby. My dr told me to come see him at 3pm so we could discuss things. My coworker called my husband and he came and picked me up. I was a hot mess!

I went and saw my dr at 3pm. He felt so bad but was able to get me in to see the surgeon right away. I left his office and went straight to the surgeon. My good friend met me there to talk about my cancer type, stage, etc. she was a two year breast cancer survivor. They said I had stage 1 invasive lobular carcinoma (very hard to detect and more rare than ductal) and recommended a lumpectomy. The tumor was the size of a pea so they could get it out no problem. I started thinking about everything and told him I’d prefer to just get both breast removed with a double mastectomy to lessen the chance of recurrence. He agreed and scheduled me to see the plastic surgeon for a reconstruction consultation.

I met with the plastic surgeon soon after and as he was doing my exam, he stated that he felt a hard lump in the front of my left breast. I told him no, the tumor was on the other side and it’s tiny. He shrugged it off and continued with the exam.

my mastectomy surgery was May 30, 2019. I was so stressed out during the time leading up to the surgery that I had my PCP put me on antidepressants and I had a reiki done to calm my energy. Best decision of my life! I went into the OR in good spirits and was not stressed at all. The surgery lasted 6 hours and I woke up with no pain and no issues. The drs were amazed at how calm I was! The breast surgeon came in and said he got everything out and I was considered cancer free! But he said that when he was removing the tissue, they found a 5cm tumor that went undetected in all my pre-surgery scans! 5 cm!! So I was changed to stage 2.

I spent the next few months getting my expanders filled while waiting for my oncotype score on the lathe tumor to come back. It took forever! When it finally did, it was rated as high risk and I was scheduled for 16 weeks of chemotherapy. 4 rounds of “Red devil” and 4 rounds of taxol. Such a whirlwind of emotions. I started chemo August 19, 2019. It was horrible. The bone pain, the fatigue, and the hair loss was something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But I got through it! Two years later now and I had my expanders taken out last year and replaced with implants. I was on medical leave from work for 10 months and went back right as covid started.

the best piece of advise I could give anyone is to listen to your body. You know yourself best! If drs aren’t listening, make them! I fought for months to get diagnosed! Had I just listened to that first dr and not did a mammogram who knows where I’d be today? You have to advocate for yourself!

I’d like to add that I did do the BRCA gene testing and it came back negative. My first cousin had breast cancer years prior so I thought that maybe there was a link but there wasn’t.

sorry this was super long but I hope it helps someone!

First off I am a cancer survivor. I have had the worst and best luck with accidents and medical stuff. To answer the question, I need to start at the beginning.

Back in 1993 to 1996, I was stationed in Okinawa at Kadena Air Force Base. I was an F-15 Crew Chief. One of my daily duties was to inspect the jet, and fix minor and major breaks when they should arise. Also we launched and recovered the jet when it flew 2 to 3 times a day. When the jet came back from a flight, during the shut down process, we had to stand under the engine and catch very hot jet fuel in a bucket. Each engine dumped roughly 12oz of steaming JP8 jet fuel. (This is an important detail to remember)

fast forward to January 1996. I bought a motorcycle the morning of Jan 13th 1996. It was a Honda NSR 250cc 2 stroke. I went to the gas station to fill up the motorcycle I had just bought, when I ran into 2 buddies who where also on their motorcycles. They were about to take a ride to the north tip-of the island. They asked me to join, so I did. 1/2 way up, we stopped to take a break. When we started again, I forgot to put my kickstand up on the bike. This ultimately cause me to wreck the bike. I was going roughly 30MPH, but it was enough to eject me off the bike and when I was thrown, my left hand got caught on the handlebar which twisted and pulled my arm, tearing all the nerves that control the arm right out of my spine. This paralyzed the arm permanently. This was my first brush with death that I was unlucky, but lucky because my head came inches from getting run over by oncoming traffic.

Fast forward to 2013. My arm had been paralyzed, but I would go bowling once a week on a bowling league. When I bowl, I get a decent workout on my left thigh muscle. After about 2 games out of 3, my thigh starts hurting. It felt deep like it may be something wrong with the bone. I've had several broken and cracked bones, and this wasn't as excruciating as a broken bone, but it was the same kind of pain. I go to the dr about it and they did an X-Ray and couldn't find anything wrong with the bone. They call it a sprain and tell me to take it easy for a few weeks and see if it gets better. It seemed to get better because it didn't hurt unless I overworked that muscle. So a few months later, it starts to hurt consistently. If I used that muscle at all, it would hurt to the point where I would limp, so I go back to the dr, and she refers me out to an orthopedic dr. He gets more X-Rays and finds nothing, but he isn't satisfied with that answer and says there could be a hairline stress fracture so small we can't see it on X-ray, so he orders a bone scan. A bone scan uses radio active particles just like a pet scan, but not as detailed. they always do a full body scan. The results were very interesting. They found 2 cracked ribs from when I took a dive on a skateboard a few weeks earlier. Plus on my left leg there was a round spot about the size of a nickel. Crack's don't show up as round in a bone scan, but tumor's do. Almost immediately they get an MRI of the leg and it shows a flat mass about the size of a nickel. The ortho dr said he doesn't feel comfortable removing it because of where it is and he wants me to see an ortho specialist. So I go see the specialist and he wants a biopsy first. They do the biopsy and it comes back as inconclusive for cancer. He assures me that inconclusive almost always means no cancer. He then says he wants to just leave it alone and just watch it to see if it grows. I quickly dismiss that option and ask him to please remove it. He tries to talk me out of it, but I persist and tell him that it is causing a lot of pain and I can handle the recovery. (Fyi, the tumor is flat against the femur on the top of my thigh about 2 inches above the knee) he said he will have to go through the muscle to get it out. This will cause a lot of pain and muscle trauma in my leg, but it will heal with some PT. I told him this is acceptable and to remove it. So he does. About an hour after surgery, he is at my bedside apologizing up and down and telling me pathology said it was Diffuse type B small cell Non Hodgekins lymphoma. The next step is to see Oncology. I go to oncology and they test marrow, blood, and take a PET scan. Let me tell you, the wait to get results is the worst week of your life. Knowing you have cancer but not knowing what stage, and if it will kill you is the most stress a person can endure emotionally. (I am seriously tearing up right now even thinking about it) Ok, so results say I am clear of any other tumors and it wasn't in my marrow, and blood tests are good so it's stage 1. He said possibly pre stage one. We caught it as early as it is possible to catch it. This gave me a 98% survivable rate. Again unlucky to get cancer but extremely lucky to catch it so early. 5 rounds of chemo and lots of radiation later and I am cancer free from 2013 to now. So 9 years cancer free. Here is where the jet fuel thing comes in. So Lymphoma doesn't run in my family. Only colon. They think I got lymphoma from the inhaling of the steam from the hot jet fuel. I'm already a 100% disabled vet and there is no point fighting to have that added.

So, right now I am in the waiting stages again. There was some pinching of some nerves in my only good arm, plus sciatic nerve pain. So they start looking at my spinal chord. MRI shows 6 herniated disks plus a mass right against my spinal chord right where they can't get to it for a biopsy. They have tested my spinal fluid and no cancer cells there. So they think the mass could be from the accident where the nerves came out of the spine. It let a small amount of blood into my spinal fluid, and that could have formed scar tissue. They want to wait 3 months and do another scan to see if it is growing. So we wait.

I know this was a long post and I'm sure there was some typos or misspelled words, but you get the gist of the story. I hope I was able to answer the question. I have always been accident prone, and at the same time I am also very lucky. So I get bad stuff happen but it happens I. The best way possible. Lol. God bless everyone for reading my story.

Edit: 1/11/2024. I just got a call from the cancer center and after all the images and tests, they said they are fairly confident that it's scar tissue and not cancer. They will do a yearly MRI just in case though. I still have herniated disks but until they start causing more problems they don't want to mess with them.

I was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma 2 years ago when I was 27 years old, looking back there were a lot of signs and symptoms, some that concerned me, some that I brushed off, and some that others, including medical professionals brushed off. I know there’s a joke that if you google any symptom, the internet will eventually lead to a possible diagnosis of cancer, so unfortunately a lot of my symptoms where attributed to other/incorrect diagnosis. The first symptom, that I ignored was night sweats, I’d wake up soaked in sweat, but it was the summer (so what if my A.C. was turned down to 68 degrees), I attributed that symptom to the weather (and later a medical professional attributed to anemia). A second symptom was loss of appetite, and enjoyment of food, I’d wake up without an appetite, next thing I know it’s 5pm and I still haven’t eaten anything, I’d try to force myself to eat something, but half the time I’d end up taking a bite and spitting it out, because everything tasted bland or disgusting (everything except surprisingly Oreos, I couldn’t eat many because I wasn’t hungry but I still enjoyed the taste). I realized the not eating was strange, but since I wasn’t feeling hungry, I just assumed my body didn’t want food, it wasn’t until I stepped on a scale and realized I’d lost 30lbs, that I started to get concerned.

Those where the early symptoms, that I brushed off, now the later symptoms that concerned me; one of my tonsils became extremely swollen (later we’ll discover that it was a tumor), I went to one of those 24 emergency clinics was seen by a NP and was diagnosed with tonsillitis, prescribed antibiotics and told to come back in 2 weeks, came back 2 weeks later was seen by a DIFFERENT NP and told that everything looked like it was getting better (how she would know that seeing as she was a different NP and had nothing to compare my tonsil to should have been a clue), and that I should be fine.

I was not fine, my tonsil continued to swell, till eventually it was difficult to even swallow around, I couldn’t eat anything dry because it would get caught on my tonsil and I’d feel like I was choking (bye-bye Oreos), and I had difficulty breathing while laying on my back. I finally went to another 24 hour clinic, and shocked the NP with how swollen my tonsil was (he said that normally complaints about tonsillitis come from overprotective parents, and turn out to be nothing). Because of this pre-conceived bias, that regular people (I.e. non-medical personnel) aren’t able to determine when there body is doing something weird, my swollen tonsil was brushed aside for months, all the time the tumor growing bigger, and the cancer spreading to additional lymph nodes within my body. I was finally referred to an ENT where my tonsil was biopsied, and I was diagnosed with Stage 2 follicular lymphoma. I was concerned about my swollen tonsil, but was convinced I was overreacting.

This isn’t supposed to be a post bashing doctors or medical personnel, I have respect for them, but they are not all knowing. You live with your body 24/7, and if you’re lucky doctors/medical personnel will see it for about 15 minutes during a visit, if something weird is happening with your body trust your instincts, and get a second, or third opinion.

This is my first post on here, so I apologize for any run-on sentences, or formatting errors.

Firstly I am going to talk from my personal experience of breast cancer an illness that is not in my family.

There were many signs in retrospect.

I got a warning from a Genetics Professor as I was leaving her home on an unrelated matter. She said words to the effect that, ‘ by the way women are getting breast cancer at younger ages, and we don't know why.’

I was warned about it by another doctor when I went to see her on an unrelated matter.

My mother warned me too.

I got two small moles burned by my doctor under my arm and at the time a deep message came from I don't know where—warning me about breast cancer.

Just before my diagnosis, I had a slight shift in energy. My energy level lessened.

I had mild but unusual tiredness. I also had a blackout briefly. Small challenges seemed impossible.

I was highly stressed at that time and the cause was external circumstances. And found myself losing my temper, again that is a rare event for me.

I felt thwarted by family members and I had a few verbal meltdowns. Highly unusual reactions for me.

I didn’t like the sight of my breasts. I thought they didn't look right. Veins slightly more noticeable.

In other words they were on my mind.

I began taking vitamins to increase energy levels. I ate healthily. I took vitamin C. I knew something was not quite right with me.

My cat would jump from the side table and land on the space between my breasts and jump off again. Weird behavior from a pet animal which again was unusual. I took it as her wanting food so I fed her but perhaps she was signaling me?

( ***I forgot this incident. I walked into a door handle just before the lump came up. I was highly stressed and the dog went passed me and I misjudged and it was excruciating. The handle had a protruding bit like a knob and that penetrated. I remember thinking…you've really done it this time. This was exactly where the tumour was located about two months later but the doctors said it was already there and the door knob was coincidence…only one elderly gynaecologist said he was taught at medical school that an injury may cause breast cancer.)

I kept on checking my breasts.Then one morning it was there—a hard pea sized lump.

All these former changes before the door incident, were slight but in retrospect there was a definite weakening not only physically but emotionally as well. Walking into door handles I don't do. And it was my first breast injury ever. I was off kilter physically and mentally.

That was 2013. I had the full treatment in 2014. It was very tough but necessary.

My advice is listen to your body. As soon as there is a shift in energy, for the worse go to your doctor immediately.

• Edit. I have remembered two other things that might be of importance. When I went to see the doctor about the lump, there were two other new skin mole type growths that I had not seen before. But the doctor dismissed them as benign but it's interesting that they appeared at a similar time. The other was I had a painful mouth reaction to what I thought was either a mango or a sucking type of sweet that I had eaten a few of. My mouth was extremely sore for a few days. This occurred in the weeks before I noticed the lump. Again an overreaction that had never happened before. I stopped eating mangoes and those sweets for years but I have eaten them within the last year and I have had no reaction. I really don't know if there is a connection with having cancer develop. I thought at the time that something within me had changed to make physical overreactions to certain foods occur.
• 2021 edit: At the time of the emotional stress in the year or two prior, which resulted in feelings of fear, I felt like I was leaking female hormones or adrenalin or something from the kidney ovary region.
• I also developed an unplanned intense romantic attraction to a much younger man in another country beginning 8 months before diagnosis continuing through treatment but slowly diminishing overtime and then dying out after about five or six years. These feelings were very enjoyable and like a teenage crush and I did not ever meet up with him. Again this behaviour was unlike me to be like that. I don't know if it was as a result of estrogen and progesterone hormones being off balance and the excess fear hormones like adrenalin causing havoc or whether his attractive appearance created the imbalance in me? But all of this indicates that my body chemistry was undergoing changes and this may all play into the development of my hormonal breast cancer. My GP doctor asked me straight out if I was undergoing a breakup of a love relationship at the first diagnostic time, before seeing the oncologist and that suggests to me, that potential divorce or relationship breakdown in that GP doctor's mind, may directly weaken the immune response to cancer cells resulting in tumour growth. In my case my close love relationship of many years was in jeopardy and then out the blue, I became suddenly romantically obsessed with a stranger who I saw on television and who lived in another country.
• I had severe endometriosis discovered when I had a hysterectomy and the gynaecologist who did the hysterectomy said an earlier operation might have saved me from breast cancer. I had premenstrual syndrome also from puberty onwards. The idea at that time was to manage my PMS as that was how I was made as a woman and I had to try to live my life normally and not let it get in my way from doing what I wanted to do, which is what I did. Although my mother once said in a joking way that I could never be an airline pilot but she was most likely correct about that.
• Update 2022. I discovered that the cancer rate in the middle east is significantly lower than in the Europe and the West so on investigation I came to understand the value of fasting. It strengthens the immune system. I actually try to fast almost every day now eating only in an 8 hour window and fast for 16 hours.
• 2024 update. I have been doing a lot of walking. I joined ‘Walk Run for Life’ and now I walk with another group as well. I also take medication for high cholesterol which inherited from my fathers side of the family. Since the end of my treatment I have done a lot of exercise, swimming and walking at least 3 or 4 times a week.
• 2025 update. I have just finished Aldara for basal cell cancer on my nose. I saw this weird tiny scab around March. The first doctor said just watch it. I had nightmare dreams about it. My mind was disturbed by it. It wouldn’t heal. Saw another doctor who called in a colleague and they diagnosed basal cell. I live in a sunny subtropical place but do not actively try tan myself, being of European decent my skin is not made for too much sun—but I still got skin cancer from many years living here.

Well different cancers cause different symptoms but one was bad headaches. I suffered from migraines so just put it down to that and the stress of university, two jobs and a little boy with autism. I was never one to jump to conclusions. The other strangely was weight gain and constant fatigue. I could have slept standing and never seemed to get enough sleep. I out the weight gain down to eating habits with work but turned out it actually was my thyroid and I had developed hypothyroidism to the point I had no thyroid function and my doctor wanted me to take six weeks off work to try and get it regulated. They said it was unusual for a young girl to have this and from there my symptoms came thick and fast. Thing is I still never jumped to that conclusion but I remember us having a man in with a brain tumour three week’s before I was diagnosed and thinking god I don’t know what I’d do if I had one. Little did I know three weeks later it would be me. It’s difficult as some cancers don’t show signs but I was very lucky to have a brilliant GP who took no chances and knew that if I was in to see him then there was something wrong and he trusted my judgement as a nurse to know something wasn’t right. It’s a guessing game and sometimes they have nothing to do with cancer but I always say it’s better to be safe than sorry especially now with covid holding everything up! If you are worried then go and get checked out!

I didn’t know it at the time … in fact, I didn’t know anything at the time, to be honest. I had just climbed into my Navigator to head off to my usual Wednesday afternoon Bible study with the guys. Six hours later I woke up in a room I had never been in before, saw the words “INTENSIVE CARE UNIT” on a sign on the wall, and realized that I was in a deep state of shit!

My bride of 44 years was sitting next to me, relieved that I had regained consciousness, and was able to discuss the events of that afternoon.

Apparently my wife, knowing that I had left roughly a half hour before, couldn’t understand why she kept hearing the truck running in the back yard. She took a look, saw that I had crashed through our iron fence and was up against a tree in our back yard. (Thank God I hit the tree, lest I would have ended up in our swimming pool!). She ran outside, but couldn’t recall the code to unlock the doors on the Navigator, so she called 9–1–1. At this time I was retired, but had been a cop for 34 years, so I knew every officer in our small town from the Chief on down. It literally rained police officers to help me out! She found the door code and they got me out of the truck, found that my heart rate was only 30 so they started CPR (which took about 3 weeks for me to recover my ribs and intercostal spaces!). They originally thought that I had suffered a stroke. EMS arrived and took over care. I was placed into the ambulance where I had 3 grand mal seizures on the way to the ER. The hospital (Baylor Scott & White) was known for specializing in head injury, trauma, and conscious impaired patients, so they immediately gave me an EEG, CT scan, and an MRI to look into my brain. They found that I had a “slight shading in my right frontal brain lobe that looked very suspicious”. They thought originally that it might have been an old infection, then they opined that I might have some unusual growth in my right frontal brain. By this time I had regained consciousness, and my brain had seemed to settle down. At least I could talk in complete sentences and make a modicum of sense (at least to my wife!). Theresa and I discussed the findings from the EEG, CT and MRI and decided that, since we both had other specialists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center we may as well hook up with the neurology folks there. I got a referral to the UTSW hospital, and got scheduled for consultations. After a six day stay at the Baylor facility I was released to go home.

Three hours after getting home I was sitting on our master bed talking normally with Theresa when I looked at her, gasped loudly, and had another grand mal seizure right in front of her. I woke up at the Clements Hospital, UTSW in Dallas, wishing I knew what the hell was going on! They got another MRI right away. The “slight shading” in my right frontal lobe had become a solid 3/4 inch mass in my brain after only 6 days!

We sat down with the most delightful neurosurgeon God ever created, and discussed our options. We talked about the possibility of getting a biopsy and recovering for six weeks, or going ahead with surgery to remove the tumor. We all agreed that surgery was the best option overall. So I underwent a craniotomy and resection of what turned out to be a malignant Glyoblastoma multiforme. These tumors are regular bastards, with a survival prognosis of 7 to 12 months, with a five year survival rate of 3%. I started daily oral chemotherapy with radiation performed 5 days out of 7 for 28 days, and then went into a 5 day on chemo, 23 days off. Soon I’m about to enter a National Cancer Institute study where the original surgeon will open my head, find the remaining tumor (which has gotten bigger), install a catheter, and infuse a radioactive isotope directly into the mass.

So my first symptom was profound unconsciousness with multiple seizures, followed by a bunch of diagnostics, followed by the nice folks at UTSW basically microwaving my brain!

At least we were able to get the iron fence fixed so that I don’t have to be reminded of that incredibly screwy day!

IBS. I had worsening symptoms for a couple of years. My dad also has similar issues so I had put it down to a hereditary condition.

Also, going back about 6 years ago I started to have dizzy spells. I went to the GP about it and they ran all sorts of tests but couldn't find what was wrong with me. They tried putting me on different medications but nothing seemed to work. In the end they put it down to anxiety. I still have the dizzy spells plus some days I generally feel unwell but it is hard to say exactly what it is.

I went to a patient conference for sufferers of peritoneal mesothelioma and the one thing we all had in common was the IBS symptoms.

I'm going to tell you my story but first I want to say to all the physicians of Reddit to please listen to your patients when we say that there's something else wrong. Because while you are highly educated in how the body works, everybody are masters when iit comes down to their own.p

Mistakes are made on my gastroenterologist end. But I don't blame them. I also have chronic pancreatitis and have had it for 6 years. But they thought was a pancreatic cyst that was only 2.2 cm and 1.1, and I was having pancreatitis flare ups all the time because of alcoholism. They never really took it seriously . Sorry that's wrong. that's the wrong thing to say. I think I didn't take it seriously and I should have stopped drinking. So when they're constantly telling me to do something to make it better and I'm not doing it then they're not really going to look too hard for certain things, right? Or maybe they're just trying to save their breath because I wasn't going to listen to them anyway. Anyway, one routine scan and the cyst was growing, had a biopsy and it turned out to be tumor that was growing pretty damn quickly. Peripancreatic lymphnodes were all enlarged, and the CA-9:tumor marker was showing which had never done before. They had never even done that test. And they still wanted that shit so badly to be just a cyst and pancreatitis. That must have been half it up they were with me. Cuz I had asked them a few times could that be what's causing it and it was always disregarded. But I'll never really know. I have to share in some of the blame.

Pame. You know what? Let's just it's just unfortunate.

Well it wasn’t me but my youngest sister and all the while, I thought she was getting healthier. All of a sudden, she didn’t get sick any more, she stopped getting asthma attacks and she was becoming more and more constipated as the days progressed. All of her allergic rashes disappeared. I have since pieced this all together. She stopped getting seasonal colds and flu because her immune system had stopped working. She stopped getting asthma attacks because her immune system had stopped working and no matter how healthily she ate, she was still constipated. That is what was MISSED more than anything, except when she dropped a dress size some 20 years earlier and we never questioned it.

It looked and felt innocent at first. But I guess this is how it often starts.

THE SIGN

It’s so very common that we go to the doctor with a slightly painful tiny lump, which turns out to be nothing. So this time, the feeling was the same. It was trivial but it hurt, so what do you do ?

In general, everything was perfect.

The kids were great, the relationship was as well, teaching was better than ever, and at the club, training for the next dan grade had begun — again: everything was perfect.

So when the doctor insisted that he take an image, there was some concern — at least, on his side. But at least the limp was under my arm, and not in on of my breasts.

A DIAGNOSIS

This was almost four years ago, but I will not forget that day, and the weeks that followed. More quickly than seconds.

Not much later the diagnosis came, and my whole life changed.

Breast cancer. Stage IV, with metastasis to the bones.

The little lump was a lymph node, and it was a sign that the cancer had spread.

I wondered what my friends would think. I wonder what he would think.

IT’S JUNE

Today I am sitting here in pain, and all it lost.

Waiting for my son who is doing gymnastics training, and he is sitting behind me, waiting for his girl. Which means he has seen me in my current, and almost final state.

There’s nothing to hide anymore. (How do you hide metastasis to the liver in its final stages ?)

There’s also nothing to say. This is all what is left from the way we were.

One long hour of fucking silence.

I know I look like a ghost. I know I am almost a ghost.

The cancer is hugging me too tight, and I know he understands. And I hate it.

There’s nothing more painful to be confronted with the past if you have no future.

AND THEN SEPTEMBER CAME

And now he knows that she is gone.

And that the tiniest of symptoms, can lead to the ugliest of hugs.

SOURCES: Google images.