After three cancers being a Mommy has become the greatest thing I have ever accomplished. I'm not saying I did it well, but I did it with love and the best I could. I am an imperfect loving parent.
Having cancer and young children is like juggling knives and cupcakes. You can't take your mind off either one for very long or they might come crashing down with disasterous results.
A little background. I had breast cancer when I was 29. I had a new breast cancer diagnosis in the other breast when I was 35. Both times I had lumpectomies, heavy chemo and radiation. When I was 42 I met a great young Doctor, Lisa Curcio. She is a breast surgeon and has had breast cancer herself as a young Mom. I called to see if I could have her as a guest on the television show I was producing.
As we were talking in the make up room, I told her about my experiences. Her first response was "HAVE YOU BEEN TESTED?" Tested for what? SHe then explained the BRCA (BReast CAncer) gene. Having breast cancer twice before the age of 40 were huge red flags for her and she strongly encouraged me to come in for the test.
We did the show and for months her words haunted me. I had made the decisions to do extreme chemo and radiation because I wanted to see my young children grow up and I wanted to be a Grandma. My youngest was only 7 months old when I was first diagnosed, so I had a lot of time think about cancer and surviving it.
I made an appointment months later after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy. It was time to see if we could pinpoint a reason why I was getting sick...more importantly if I could prevent more things from happening.
It was a consultation full of statistics, probabilities, possibilities, my questions we only a blood draw away from being answered. (Now the don't even have to do a blood draw, they do a cheek swab:)
Weeks later my results were in. I was positive. Finally answers!!!!!
