Coming around slowly...

Let me say thanks to everyone who has offered a kind word, a book suggestion, a website to review, a friend or relative to talk to... THANK YOU. Seriously, thank you. Once I am comfortably assured that I won't lose my composure willy-nilly... I will check it all out.

Whew... the anger is going down. I'm still mad but not like I was on Thursday. I spent the weekend crying a lot. Thursday and Friday especially... but by Sunday, I was coming around to the notion that ... once again... my life is not going the way that I had planned. And I am going to have to get okay with it very quickly if I am going to be able to handle all the changes that are coming my way.

One big scary part of all of this is making the right decisions. There are so many questions and options thrown my way... and I want to make the right decisions for my health but also for my personal comfort level.

I will say it again... because for some reason, people don't seem to hear me...

I DON'T WANT TO LOSE MY BREAST.

Everytime I say those words to someone, they give me this look. Sort of a mixture between pity and confusion. As though, I don't fully grasp what is going on with my body and am having either a delayed reaction or I am somehow defining who I am as a person by these fat bags on my chest. Neither is true.

I wouldn't want to lose my arm, my leg, my toe or my finger... either. However, in my case, it is a left breast that I am trying to hold on to. It came with the rest of the package and I'd like to keep it. Please and thank you.

I am getting it. I am really quite ill. I never knew, don't feel any differently than I have for the past 39 years... but yes, I have cancer and its pretty doggone bad.

I get it.

I also get that I have more than one tumor in my breast that needs to come out of my body. I understand that completely. I'd like Fred and his friends evicted from my boobie too. More than anybody else, I'd like to say. However, I am confused as to why the whole house has to be torn down because of a few rowdy visitors.

Why can't we kick them out, wash down the walls, put in some new carpet and call it a day? What's with the whole demolition deal?? I'm not FEELING this.

The option to take away my whole breast on the off-chance that the cancer might come back seems absurd. (I'm being really honest, it seems downright stupid to me) And then to insert a fake boob where the real one was... so that it appears that nothing is different, seems even more absurd. And the cherry on top... is to finally "adjust" the other, perfectly fine one... so that they match.

I'm going to take your arm off, even though only a few fingers are problematic, then I'm going to give you a new arm to replace the old arm and finally... because the new arm won't look exactly like the old arm, we're going to do some things to it, so they match.

??? Why doesn't anyone else see this as screwy but me? (and for the last time, I am not Christina Applegate)

Anyhoo... like I said... I'm coming around. It is a slow progression but I'm making it. I have to. I can't miss seeing the first black president of the United States. I gotta get it right, right now... because there may not be another chance.

But I don't like this... at all.