This week I turned 40! I also had a breast biopsy! -Originally from January 18, 2023

 So, of course, this blog is on my website and one might ask what it has to do with me and Mark. Well, everything I do now in my life I take him with me...so I decided to host my blog on the website. It's my only website in recent years and he has been huge in my life. Not just romantically but in so many other ways.

I'm writing this today because...it was my birthday this week! I'm 40 years old now...the big 4-0. I was unable to get in the right frame of mind to celebrate because I've had a very large breast lump that I found at the beginning of November 2022. I went to the doctor and had to wait to get an ultrasound appointment. I wasn't booked until January 17th. That's right..two days after my 40th birthday. It absolutely sabotaged my Christmas and my birthday and the wait was killing me.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shaken by this.

Yesterday I went to my appointment. It turned out that I don't have just one but TWO masses in my breast. The radiologist was concerned it could be cancer so I was sent down the hall for a mammogram and then had to come back to the ultrasound room for biopsies.

This procedure was an absolute nightmare. They were going to biopsy the first lump (the main one I felt since November) near the nipple area. I was given an injection to completely numb the area but...IT WAS NOT ENOUGH! I cannot stress enough just how "not enough" it was. I thought I was about to die from the pain...and they still had two more in that area they had to take. It felt like part of my breast had been cut off...and I mean...really it had. I am so traumatized by this that if I ever need biopsies near that area or any sensitive area again in the future I'm insisting I be knocked out for it. It was absolutely horrendous. They then moved to the next lump which was further up and...nothing. Didn't feel a thing. I don't understand why they can't seem to find a way to numb the nipple area better. Is this a thing everywhere or do they just not do it well enough here? No one should ever have to feel that level of pain from a routine biopsy. If that doesn't work well enough then, honestly, medicine needs to figure something out because it's an awful thing.

I've been thinking a lot about Mark and everything he went through. Sure, it wasn't breast cancer, it was liver cirrhosis...but that doesn't matter. He suffered so much and made it very clear in the end that he'd been fighting hard to stay with me. He was always saying stuff about karma with the fact that he got me but got me at the end of his life. He wanted love but never found the right person. He didn't feel other prospects over time were genuine...or healthy for him...or he just didn't "feel it" and what have you. He'd not been a "good boy" for much of his life and as I stated in my book...he had so many regrets about the way he'd chosen to live. But it seemed his regret was far worse once he found out his feelings for me were reciprocated. We had conversations about God though I was not a Christian at the time. I came back a couple of months after he died because I realized he finally understood repentance and the nature of God's forgiveness from our talks. He grew up in a church much like mine. When he went on comfort care at the end of his life, his doctor told me he said, "she's going to be heartbroken," and he was scared he was disappointing me. Even in his last moments before he was knocked out by comfort care medications...he was thinking of me. Mark had been diagnosed at 40. He was 41 when he passed.

He's been on my mind a lot through this. I don't know what my diagnosis is going to be. I'm hoping for something benign...anything! Just please let it be benign! I pray to God it is.

I'm going to be honest...just like I am in the book...when Mark was dying (and since) I asked God to take me with him. I've not been well since his loss and it will be a year and a half since he passed in March (he died Labour Day 2021). It's not even been a year and a half and I'm still an emotional (and physical) mess from that and now this breast cancer scare. It wasn't just the loss of him that kept me asking God to take me. It's because I was not well. I've been very sick half the time. I've not been able to even try to live. If one feels like they can't even eat and are nauseous all the time...one has no calories. You need calories to live...to move. It's fuel! I realized I truly wanted to live when I had a vertigo attack from hell (I thought I was having a stroke it was so bad) at the beginning of December. I knew I wasn't truly prepared to die yet when I started immediately praying "Please, God, don't let this be it." I prayed it over and over as the sweat was pouring off me and I was vomiting in the ambulance. I miss Mark...I do want to be with him again. And obviously being with God would be amazing, but I still feel like I have stuff to do here. I wanted to get the book out to rehabs hopefully...I want to make sure people who need to read such a story get a copy. When I originally had it on this website in the beginning (last spring) so many people told me I needed to publish it and get it out there to more people. I don't want cancer to hold me back. I'm already just starting to bounce back a bit from how unwell I've been...I don't need another challenge.

I found out that by the time you can feel breast cancer in the body it's been there at least 2-5 years already. The recommendation for mammograms USED to be age 35. It's been increased since then so I was never given one. I honestly feel like it should never have changed from age 35 after this experience. If I had been having mammograms yearly, something would have been found before now and I would not be experiencing this. I'm angry...but that's it. If, by some chance, it's something really bad (they said there was nothing showing with my lymph nodes) then if I lose the battle I get to see Mark again and be with God. But I worry about the family and friends I'd be leaving behind. Not only that but my wonderful little kitty, Lumi. She's been my little buddy through all of this. I love that cat so much and I don't want her to think she was abandoned by me if I die. I know it sounds dumb.

I've thought back on the last few years. I've especially thought about the absolutely insane amount of stress my ex-boyfriend (before I got with Mark) put me through. Constant mental abuse (he didn't believe mental abuse was a thing and said I just needed to toughen up.) He had periods of being nice but would become cruel again very quickly. I don't know why I stayed in that for three and a half years but, I don't know why I stayed with a physically abusive ex-husband for 10 years (7 married.) You don't understand the pattern of abuse and why anyone stays until you are in it. My ex-boyfriend was more mental than anything and it was much different than the general angry about everything attitude (not just toward me) and being smacked around by my ex-husband. They were two very different things. I'd take being physically smacked around over the mental damage that was done to me any day. Ideally, I'd take neither. But...the physical healed quicker. I still hear things my ex-boyfriend said to me in my head. Quite often actually. Horrible things. Critical of everything I said, did. My weight, my singing, my art, my family and friends, my jobs...even telling me I had a "shitty dye job" the last time I got highlights before we broke up. It goes on and on. I would lash out at him in my hurt...I went against my own integrity in doing that and I think that part of it makes me find it hard to forgive the most. If his goal was to make me hate myself, to some degree he's won. I'm trying to forgive. I can make a decision to forgive...but how do you really forgive when you still feel that pain? You still hear those nasty words? It was almost every single day...it was absolutely ridiculous. I'm convinced...if stress adds to cancer risks...and it's in the body 2-5 years before you can even feel it then I'm pretty convinced that the stress he had me under for over three years played a big part.

Don't get me wrong...the stress of losing Mark probably had a big impact too. It's all a perfect storm. To tell you the truth I don't know the last time I felt peaceful and healthy at the same time. It's incredibly frustrating. I'm terrified of what the results of the biopsy will be. I am praying it will be benign even if I do need surgery to remove the lumps. Just please be benign. I'm at the end of my rope mentally. I need some peace in my life. I guess I'll update once I know.