Here we go

So here is my cancer blog - just slightly less depressing than a caring bridge site, since most of the caring bridge sites I've followed ended in death. But we won't go there - my journey is just beginning.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer a week and half ago, and on Tuesday after a PET scan they decided to call it Stage 3c. Because the cells are dividing so fast and it has spread to several lymph nodes, the oncologist feels that we need to start chemotherapy right away to shrink it down, with surgery to follow. The good news about aggressive cancers, from what I read online, is that if the chemo works it will work well. The more often cells are dividing the more they get hurt by the chemo drugs. No matter how much I try to convince my logical brain that going ahead with chemo is the best decision, my gut is telling me to run away. I feel perfectly healthy and strong, not tired, not weak, not drained, not sick. And yet I have to walk into the cancer center tomorrow and sign up for 4 months of chemotherapy. Even though I realize that being strong and healthy will help me get through it better than a sick person, it makes it awfully hard to subject myself to this treatment.

So tomorrow I go off to get my first treatment. Mandy is going with me (thank you Mandy!) and we're going to check out the wig store beforehand. I'm thinking that I'm probably not much of a wig person, especially in the winter - how well do winter hats and wigs work together? Not well, I'm thinking. But I should probably check out my options, who knows how I will feel about when my hair falls out, which they tell me will be in about 2 weeks. Just in time for my birthday, so everyone can send me soft warm hats this year, I guess.