You weren't invited to the party, breast cancer!

Who knew I also needed to be afraid of turning twenty-one?

I imagined my life to be a certain way – I was going to graduate, find a job working for an advertising agency, eventually get married, and travel. Overall, I was going to be living my best life. 


But, then turned itself upside down. 
A cyst, that was something that I could get behind. I was young and healthy: I went to yoga twice a week and I occasionally engaged in binge drinking on the weekend like everyone else in college. I thought my body was just going through unnecessary changes. I remember telling my mother not to worry, but I was doing just that because how could I not. That night, the Philadelphia Eagles won their very first Super Bowl. 

At twenty-one. 

I was 21-years-old and faced with the most life-altering event that I could ever imagine.

My journey begins well before me. My mother was diagnosed with Stage III, Triple Negative breast cancer when she was 33 years old. I was always told that when I turned 18, I would need to be tested for the BRCA gene. I hated the thought of that mostly because it meant that one day, I would possibly be going through the same thing as my mom did. It wasn’t something that I wanted to talk about, nor think about. But, I figured that I will just not think about it and be as carefree as possible until then.

But my genetics interrupted so, here we are.

I found a lump during a Super Bowl party I was hosting. My hands were in my shirt, and I felt something that just didn't quite feel right. My friends, knowing my family history, tried to convince me that it was anything other than cancer. 

The next morning, I immediately made an appointment with my gynecologist, and I was able to be seen that following Wednesday. It was raining, which, in a way, helped calm my nerves. To my gynecologist, it was a cyst – again, something I could get behind. But after reminding her of my family history, she suggested an ultrasound just to make sure

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 During the ultrasound, my technician suggested the same thing – it’s a cyst. 

Thankfully, I had a champion in my corner – my mom. She had gone through the same thing almost ten years prior and was very adamant about pursuing every option to rule out the possibility of cancer. 

I had a biopsy scheduled for two weeks after that appointment. I tried to return to normal with the addition of my new friend. It was small, to my standards at least. The mass was attached to my right breast but slightly movable. I went through this weird phase where I wanted everyone to touch it. I later realized that the thought of touching someone's cancerous tumor probably made others very uncomfortable.

My biopsy was the first in-patient procedure I ever had. I brought the whole gang – my mom and grandmother and convinced myself that I did not need any hand-holding.

I was a big girl, and everything would be fine. 

I had too much faith in myself. I remember laying on the table and holding back tears. Those tears came, and the nurse that had the job of holding my hand, keeping me calm and distracted. After ten samples, I was done. The procedure was a quick and easy reminder that I have always hated needles. I remember spending the rest of the day watching my favorite movie, Funny Face, with an icepack under my sports bra.

I would know the results of my biopsy 5-7 days after the procedure. By day five, I was anxious. I hadn’t heard anything from them. If everything were ok, I would’ve already heard back from someone, right? 

On Presidents Day, February 19,  I got a call that would change my life. 

I didn’t have class on Mondays, but I had to be at my internship around noon. The woman on the phone asked if I had time to talk. At that moment, I didn’t think I had anything to worry about and that everything would be ok.

“You have cancer, is there any way you can come into the clinic at 2 p.m. today?” 

Everything paused. 

My legs started shaking. My voice started cracking. I couldn’t even finish making my lunch.She asked if I was ok, and I lied and told her I was.

I was not. 

She asked if she could do anything for me, and I just needed her to tell my mom. There was no way I would be able to. 

The only person I told was my boss. I remember being in the parking garage ugly-sobbing that I had cancer and I haven’t even told my family yet. I experienced the closest thing I would ever have to an out-of-body experience. 

People were talking, and I wasn't listening, but I could feel everything. 

Everything had changed. In the blink of an eye, I was diagnosed with Stage I, triple negative, breast cancer - a fast-growing and aggressive form of breast cancer. I was to begin chemotherapy in a month because I had a trip to Disney planned and the type of cancer I had historically reacted well to chemotherapy.

After that day, I was in shock. 

My days were suddenly filled with doctor’s appointments, meetings with a genetics counselor, my very first and traumatic MRI, a mammogram, surgery for my chemo port, AND telling people that I had cancer. 

Everything was in fast forward, and I was not.

Cancer. 

I don’t think I truly processed what was happening to me until I started chemo in March. I was utterly numb to the process and quickly had to learn that I was not in control – my doctors were, God was, and I just needed to go with it. As a control freak, the hardest part was letting go.

What they don’t tell you when you get diagnosed, you lose yourself and who you are immediately. I went from being independent with an apartment in the city to being back home and sleeping in the bed with my mom. 

Telling people was hard because I wasn’t looking for sympathy and I didn’t want people to look at me differently because of my illness. God bless the friends that I told in person because it was awkward. I didn’t know how to tell people, and I wasn’t ready for the news to be on social media at the time. It was cringe-worthy, awkward and there were apparently not enough tissues for my issues. 

I learned later on through my treatment process that those you thought would continuously be by your side will not always end there at the end. It was a hard concept to grasp that even though my life is paused, others were not.