Getting started

So I've been struggling with what to call this blog......"Pam's Journey?" No, that sounds kind of fun and this isn't a fun journey by any means. "Return of the Big C?" Naw, that doesn't sound good either. I don't want a title that's too maudlin, or something that sounds flippant. It also feels like giving it too much power by giving it a title. So, The Blog With No Name it is. Maybe as we go along I'll become more inspired, but for now, forgive me for my lack of creativity!

To get started, I need to go back in time a bit....to a sunny day in June 2008 when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Pretty devastating, but more in a surreal way. My tumor was small, estrogen positive, and hadn't spread. So I had a lumpectomy, a re-excision to get a better margin a week later, then accelerated radiation as part of a clinical trial and 4 rounds of chemo. It was small, but a fast grower (grade 3), so the doc opted to be aggressive which was fine with me and do chemo. Once I had my lumpectomy, my cancer was gone and the radiation and chemo were to keep it from coming back. I was also on Tamoxifen, another preventative measure. After my treatment, I made several lifestyle changes with the support of my family. The doctor said the only things related to cancer prevention based on research were eating whole grains, avoiding processed foods, eating 7-10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, and keeping my weight down with exercise. So I did all those things. I started running again, and ate more fruits and veggies than in my whole life before probably! I ate whole grains...even the gawd-awful whole wheat pasta. Everything's been going really well and at my last check up in October, including bloodwork and a mammogram, all was good. But, for whatever reason, on New Year's Eve day I took a good look at the affected breast in the mirror and was very disturbed by the surface changes. That started a whole new round of tests and the news that the cancer was back. This time it wasn't so surreal, just damn scary.