My Turning Point
May 2019 was when I graduated with my master’s degree. I worked so hard to accomplish this goal while working full-time as a teacher. My then partner and I were going to celebrate by spending the month of July surfing the coast of the Baja Peninsula.
We were so excited to spend the summer together, on the beach, soaking in the sun.
I walked for graduation on May 9th (a Thursday). I was on top of the world. Two days later, on the evening of May 11th I found a lump in my left breast.
Waiting through the weekend to call my doctor was excruciating. It couldn’t be cancer…I was young, healthy, about to go to Mexico. But a voice deep inside me knew something wasn’t right.
After going to see my OB/GYN, enduring a mammogram, and a failed ultrasound the things they were fairly certain of were, it was not a cyst and it didn’t look suspicious (no one thought it was cancer). My choices were to wait a year and see what happened or schedule a surgery to have it removed and tested. I am not a wait and see kind of person so I scheduled a surgery.
My surgery was on a Tuesday in June…plenty of time to heal up before leaving for Mexico!
I was told on the day of surgery that I would have the results by Friday. Just as I was losing hope that I would hear from anyone before the weekend, my surgeon's physician’s assistant called me. She called as she was pulling up the results and I knew right away that something was wrong because I could hear her gasp as she opened my chart.
“It’s cancer,” was all I remember hearing her say. For me, all the stereotypical things happened from that point...my head started spinning, maybe I started crying or maybe I didn't until after we hung up.
Throughout the phone call, there were words and phrases flooding my mind. Words that she was saying and words that were just coming to me. One of the things that was screaming the loudest was, “I am going to die without ever experiencing being a mother!”
I went through so many thoughts but this was one I kept returning to. “Why did I put motherhood off for so long?” “What was I so afraid of?” “Why did I think that being a mom meant losing myself?” “Could I do it differently?” “Is having a child after cancer even an option?” “Does choosing motherhood mean losing my relationship?”
I didn’t know the answer to any of these questions but I did know that if I survived cancer, I was going to do everything I could to live a life without regrets even if it meant doing something that terrified me.
Mexico obviously didn’t happen that summer but there was a bigger adventure unfolding before me…the quest to find myself again. To reclaim my strength, my passion, my zest for life so on my deathbed, whenever that time came, I could say I lived my life fully and without fear or regret.
Make waves, momma.
