Why Blog Now?

Well, two weeks after my mastectomy I got engaged.  Nine months after that I got married.  Three months later I got pregnant and on April 6, 2012 I had my son Hudson.  About 10 weeks after he was born I was leaning over to pick him up off the floor when I suddenly felt a sharp, burning pain in my back.  I was unable to get up.  We both lay crying on the floor until I could figure out a way to move.  4 months later I finally got an x-ray because the pain would just not go away.  They found I had a compression fracture in my spine!!  Weird for someone so young to have that happen for no reason. 

The fracture led to an MRI, dexascan (which is a test to look for osteoporosis) and a bone scan.  None of these gave us any information other than I had a compression fracture that was not healing.  Two months after these tests I decided to go to an orthopedic back specialist to get some pain relief.  He put cement in the break to help it heal and while he was in there he did a biopsy.  He was suspicious of a break that would not heal after 9 months.  Since I already had cancer he wanted to be safe.

THANK GOD he did that biopsy.  A microscopic, asshole cancer cell broke free and found a home for itself in my back.  The cancer weakened my bone and it broke when I picked up my son. 

This finding led to a PET scan which I just found out that there is also some cancer in a lymph node in my right armpit.  The crazy thing is that when I had my mastectomy I had several nodes tested and they were all clean.  How the hell did this happen?  At least having this information gives my doctors a better understanding as to how my back got cancer. 

After finding out that I will be dealing with cancer again, I knew I would need to find a way to vent and write down all the crazy things going on in my head.  I have to have chemo and radiation this time so I will document those experiences. 

I am scared shitless about this whole process, but somehow I also have an unexplainable calm over me most of the time.  Maybe it is because I know I have to be strong and kill this cancer so that I can get back to being a mom and wife.  I feel like this broken back has really kept me from being good at anything....my job, housekeeping, raising my son, my relationships etc.