2

On this the eve of my two year anniversary of being officially cancer free-aka my bilateral mastectomy.....I am reminded just how lucky I am to be here as...
 Every 69 seconds, a woman dies of breast cancer somewhere in the world. #fightbreastcancer at http://69-seconds.org/.

That's scary! 
But I am lucky I wasn't one of those and that I am here and I saw a bit of good news today in that women with TNBC and BRCA mutations actually have better odds in the long run which is always nice to hear...of course when you look at the study there were only 3 BRCA2 women in it and from what I could glean with the statistics, one of them relapsed but hey...two out of three thriving isn't bad.....right? (here's the link if you should wish to read http://www.newswise.com/articles/women-with-both-triple-negative-breast-cancer-and-brca-mutations-have-lower-risk-of-recurrence )

Anyway, I have a friend who is going in for her first mammo after BC.  She was able to only have a lumpectomy but posted that she was terrified of it and honestly I can't imagine what she is going through waiting to go in and get confirmation again that there is nothing that has come back.  In some ways I feel very lucky...I don't have the "boobs" to get the cancer anymore.  Of course...cancer is much more cunning than that when it wants to be and it can come back anywhere and even in the tiniest molecule of tissue still attached in my chest if it so decided, I'm not that naive....I'd prefer to just consider myself very optimistic in believing that "we whooped its hide reeeeal gooood" to borrow a classic line! :) 

Soooo to sum up...here I sit, still NED after 2 years-woooooohoooooooo!  Much more accepting of the foobs( yes, I said accepting, I'm still working on happy....one day I may get there, or I may not and that is a-ok either way) and pretty happy, if still exasperated with the hair at times.  I have to admit that I am still liking the "grass is greener" thing with the curls!  As someone who had perpetually straight hair it has been awesome to have it curl into perfect ringlets and have them NOT come out when it gets humid but actual curl MORE!!!!  It is kind of crazy some days and I am still trying to figure out how to get it to do the pretty curls more regularly but...I really am quite happy still to look in the mirror and see the twists and I haven't missed straight all that much(yes, ok, maybe once or twice but that's really about it ...so far curly rocks!!! )

So as we enter this month dedicated to raising awareness and celebrating those who have fought and won and lost the battle before, I ask you to do one tiny thing for me...feel your boobies and make sure they are good and if you feel anything that is out of the norm then go see your doctor and get it checked out...better to be safe than sorry especially when you see that first statistic I posted!!!!  AND this isn't just for women.  Although the majority of breast cancer cases are women, men can also get breast cancer and when they do and it is just as devastating and unfortunately more deadly.  So EVERYONE check your boobies for me please :)

Tomorrow is just another crazy day full of fieldtrips, walks, fall festivals and probably some minor zaniness thrown in there somewhere to boot but I wouldn't trade it and I am still more happy than anything to be 2:)

Blog ya later-
K