Mon­day was the day that I was sche­du­led for breast MRI tests. This is one of many dif­fe­rent types of tests I will be under­going in the coming weeks, months, and pro­bably years.

Such a strange expe­rience, and not exactly what one might expect.

First, when the nurse was sche­du­ling me, she asked the weir­dest ques­tions, like “Have you ever had metal in your eye”. Metal in my eye? I tried des­pe­ra­tely to remem­ber any ins­tance in my childhood that might have resul­ted in me having any shards of metal that I may have for­got­ten. Appa­rently, this machine con­sists of such a power­ful mag­net that if I had ever had metal in my eye…well let’s just say it would have remo­ved itself during the MRI. Blecch!

So need­less to say, I was a bit ner­vous when the test began. I fer­vently hoped I hadn’t for­got­ten some lead pen­cil acci­dent or something. Stran­gely, I squinched my eyes clo­sed, hoping that if I had for­got­ten anything, I wouldn’t expe­rience anything awful (as if kee­ping my eyes clo­sed would actually help).

The whole thing took about 30 minu­tes. 30 minu­tes is a very long time when you’re cocoo­ned in a tube and told you can’t move a muscle! My les­sons in doing nothing were coming in really handy right about now.

The funny thing was that no one told me I would start to feel like I was on a slow ride at Dis­ney! The moment they relea­sed the injec­ta­ble con­trast dye into my bloods­tream, I lite­rally felt it flow into my arm, towards my heart, and then “rush” through my veins to all my extre­mi­ties. I even felt it flow through my brain. It was the weir­dest fee­ling I’ve ever expe­rien­ced! I’ve never been more acu­tely aware of how my blood sys­tem works as I was in that moment. But that wasn’t the stran­gest part. I star­ted fee­ling like I was slowly spin­ning on a spit. I had to open my eyes to con­firm that I was actually just lying there per­fectly still. I lite­rally felt like this for the next cou­ple of hours, and it was weird, to say the least.

When I was relea­sed from the tube, I asked the nur­ses about this and appa­rently it was a rare phe­no­me­non that very few patients expe­rience. Go figure, I’m a medi­cal ano­maly!

Our next test was sup­po­sed to be a biopsy on Wed­nes­day. But when the doc­tor exa­mi­ned me, ins­tead of giving me the biopsy like we expec­ted, he asked me to get dres­sed and head on over to the con­sul­ting area.

That’s the moment I knew for cer­tain that I was going to need a mas­tec­tomy. This meant that the MRI results had come in and the doc­tor was cer­tain it was can­cer. If a biopsy wasn’t neces­sary, then a mas­tec­tomy was.

I star­ted pre­pa­ring myself for the news, and remin­ding myself to keep it together, for Michel’s sake.

See, Michel and I are firm belie­vers that sta­ying posi­tive and focu­sed on only what we want is the key to mani­fes­ting abun­dant health. So, in the past few days, we have never once let our­sel­ves ima­gine me losing my breast. We simply never let it enter our minds. We felt that if we focu­sed on a scar-​​free, healthy, beau­ti­ful breast, we would be able to ensure that non-​​surgical treat­ments would be possible.

I still firmly believe that if we would have had more time, we could have used this tech­ni­que effec­ti­vely. But we simply don’t have that kind of time.

When the doc­tor explai­ned what the MRI had shown, we were shoc­ked by how much of my breast has been taken over by can­cer. We’re not just tal­king about a lump. We’re dea­ling with nume­rous sate­llite nodes and the total area of can­cer throughout my breast is about 3/​4 of the ori­gi­nal tis­sue. Essen­tially, my breast is no lon­ger a breast at all. It is made up almost enti­rely of can­ce­rous tis­sue, and it has to go.

“Modi­fied Radi­cal Mastectomy”

Three words which scare the crap out of me.

They mean that at 36 years old, newly married, I am going to be sca­rred for life. No recons­truc­tive sur­gery in the future is going to make me ever look the same again. My nip­ple will be remo­ved, and even though nip­ple recons­truc­tion is pos­si­ble, they won’t ever be able to make it look exactly like the other one.

Wow. So that’s it then. Mas­tec­tomy. No other choice, huh?

Believe me, if I had the luxury of time, I would be the first one to explore alter­na­tive reme­dies first before going the way of the knife. If I had even 3 months to try other things, I would gladly try reme­dies and tech­ni­ques I’ve read about and would love to attempt first. But we don’t have this kind of time.

I found the lump in June. Within 2 months, it has grown from a small lump to over­ta­king my entire breast, and it is dan­ge­rously close to the lymph nodes and is threa­te­ning to decide to go explo­ring through my bloodstream.

So, we must move quickly to get rid of it before it gets any lar­ger. My sur­gery is sche­du­led for Sep­tem­ber 11th, which I find ironic.

Hea­ring the doc­tor explain what we would be doing was a little surreal. I heard his words. I unders­tood what he was saying. But it didn’t “feel” like he was tal­king to me. It was if he was explai­ning something to me that I would then need to tell someone else this was actually hap­pe­ning to. I’ve not expe­rien­ced that kind of “dis­con­nec­ted” fee­ling in many years.

I mean, I know he’s spea­king to me, and I am sca­red, but this is all hap­pe­ning so inc­re­dibly fast! How could it pos­sibly be hap­pe­ning to me?

I rea­lize that can­cer doesn’t choose who it will affect. It is mind­less and doesn’t care who I am or what I’ve done in my life. It doesn’t care that I’ve been a good person.

It is doing what it is pro­gram­med to do. It isn’t trying to be mean. It’s just a stu­pid machine that has no clue that if it is allo­wed to con­ti­nue on its path of des­truc­tion, it will ine­vi­tably des­troy its own home and thus…destroy itself.

So being angry with it wouldn’t make sense. It’s as dumb as being angry with ter­mi­tes that mind­lessly chew through the wood of a home.

But as dumb as it would be to be angry with something that doesn’t have the brain to be aware of the effect it is having on me, I am angry with it. I’m furious with it! I’m so spit­ting angry at it because if I don’t get mad at can­cer, I won’t have the energy to fight. I need this anger right now. I need to seethe and fume and be royally livid at the “thing” that dared to come into my life just when I was the happiest.

I had found my Happy Place, and can­cer came along and cha­llen­ged my right to stay in my Happy Place.

And I simply, abso­lu­tely, com­ple­tely REFUSE to give in and let this mind­less eating machine push me off my Happy Place.

It’s mine!

I deserve it.

So the next few months will be all about sta­ying in the Happy Place that I ear­ned fair and square.