Life is Messy

So, it's breast cancer.

Which is a really big scary word for a couple of tiny cancerous cells in my left breast.

It's not life threatening.

I don't have to do chemotherapy.

It'll be a lumpectomy and maybe radiation, and I'll keep you posted. I haven't even talked to the surgeon yet since I only received the official diagnosis at 4:45 yesterday afternoon. I talked to the doctor, talked to a few of the important people who needed to know, and then I went to class as usual.

I'm honestly not worried about it.  Well, I'm a LITTLE worried about it, because it involves surgery and there is risk with every surgery.  But I'm not too worried about the Cancer part of things. This is why we have yearly screenings-- so we can catch it this early when we have all of the options in front of us and they all lead to healing.

(And speaking of that: you're getting your yearly mammogram, right? I mean, if you have breasts, please do that. It's important.)

When the doctor called with the news, he said, "You're really handling this remarkably well." And I thought, "Dude. I've been through worse."

The last 18 months of my life alone have held worse. My older child was catastrophically ill in February of last year and we had a really hard time figuring out what was going on. I can't imagine dealing with anything worse than watching my child suffer right in front of me while I was powerless to help and felt generally unsupported in seeking healing for her. I think that experience will always out-misery any other experience in my life. This is not that.

We know what this is.

It's treatable.

And it's a wake-up call. Life is short and messy. Things happen that are tragic and things happen that are beautiful beyond our dreams.

I'm redoubling my efforts to chase the latter.