Dear To my son and daughter,

It is not uncommon that there is someone around you or close to you that has battled some form of cancer. It could be your child's teacher, your neighbor, or even that lovely barista at the coffee shop. Medicine has advanced so much over the years that more people are battling serious diseases and surviving.

But what takes these people from surviving to living? Survivor is a strong and positive word. However, doesn't living feel much more enticing and satisfying? "How's it going today?" "Oh, I'm surviving." "I'm not dead..."

Let go and release the bitterness. You did survive, yes, it was horrible and life changing. The #MeToo movement takes on a whole new meaning, after being diagnosed and treated for a deadly disease. "Oh, you had cancer... Me Too!" "Your hair fell out? Me too." It is not obvious to others of the difficulties you have endured, especially if you look well since treatment.

Same goes for people around you, where you are not fully aware of his/her life changing circumstances. It does not look like the lady sitting next to you at church had a double mastectomy. It does not look like the guy standing next to you in line at the grocery store was treated for colon cancer. And it does not look like my best friend had cancerous nodules removed from her throat.

Diagnosis and treatment look different for everyone. What makes us all the same, is our will to live. Not just to survive, but our power to live on, to remain in existence, and become an even greater force to be reckoned with.

Devastation can happen overnight, like a category 5 hurricane. Waves come crashing in. Rain comes down sideways, blurring the road ahead. Winds swirl and promise to rip off walls and break windows, leaving only destruction and desolation behind. That is how it feels to be told you have cancer.

I was diagnosed with having stage 2 triple negative invasive intraductal carcinoma in my right breast early January 2017. I was 35, happily married, worked a fulltime job, and had two kids. Breast cancer was not in my life plans!! I had so much to live for!

I found a lump after taking a shower. Lumps that I seemed to feel regularly when breast feeding my son. (However, I was no longer breast feeding and my son had just turned 2.) It took me 2 weeks following, to get the nerve to call and get an appointment with my doctor. Fear of the unknown? Too busy to think about it. No. I was certain I was not going to have cancer. I saw too many people around me with various forms of it, and that just was not in my life plan.

Mammogram confirmed the mass in my right breast was at least a centimeter with edges and tissue that appeared uneven and suspicious. The worst part was when the radiologist told me there was blood flow to it. The hurricane was reaching closer to the shore and being upgraded to category 2 with sustained wind speeds of 80mph.