Jaime's Breast Cancer Journey

I was supposed to go for my first chemotherapy treatment on March 18th. However, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, I asked my doctor if I could delay the treatment for two weeks. She reluctantly agreed, and, tomorrow, I'm going to get a call to schedule the port placement, the chemo teach, and the actual chemo itself, and all of those will be booked for next week. If you'd told me last year I'd have cancer in the middle of a pandemic, well...actually, I might have believed you. I've just had that kind of life. lol! But, in all seriousness, getting chemotherapy that will completely destroy my immune system in the middle of a global coronavirus pandemic is freaking terrifying ! I know the hospital will do what it can to keep me safe, but I know it will be like navigating a minefield, especially for those 2 to 3 days after treatment. I already have terrible anxiety, and I'm wondering how I'll be able to handle all of this both emotionally and physically. I d...

Yesterday, I got a call from my oncologist that made me truly happy for the first time in over 3 weeks. She told me that my MRI biopsy and ultrasound biopsy were both negative ! There were suspicious lumps in my lymph nodes and one in my left breast (the primary tumor is in my right breast), so we all thought it had spread. It hasn't spread!! I can't help smiling every time I type that or say that. Having breast cancer is bad, having to go through chemo is bad, but knowing that the cancer is nowhere else in my body but my right breast? That's freaking wonderful! Speaking of chemo, I'm supposed to set it up for 2 weeks from now. I was actually supposed to be starting today, but with the Covid-19 pandemic, I don't feel at all safe obliterating my immune system like that. I would love to wait until it's completely over, but that would be both unwise and unsafe, so I'm taking it day by day, and my doctor has assured me that my immunity will not be low ...

Over 15 years ago, I found out from a naturopathic physician that I had gluten intolerance. Before then, I'd been sick my entire life. I didn't know what it was like to not have stomach pain, body aches, a constantly stuffy or runny nose, and extreme brain fog. Once I fully understood what eating the wrong foods or foods one is intolerant to had such a profound effect on health, I changed not only my diet but my entire lifestyle. In addition to celiac disease (or non-celiac gluten sensitivity), I'll never really know which one it is, I also have diverticulosis. So, to say I have pretty crappy digestion is an understatement. Still in my 20s, I developed some serious wisdom when it came to food, diet, health, lifestyle, etc. I was vigilant about what I put in and on my body for many people to believe I had some sort of paranoid disorder. The truth is, I DO have OCD, but this was different. Like I mentioned in my first post , cancer runs absolutely rampant in my famil...

On February 25th, 2020, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I went to the oncologist two days later and found out that I have a particular type of breast cancer called Triple Negative Breast Cancer, which is actually the worst of all of them because it can be difficult to treat as chemotherapy is the only known treatment in the conventional oncology field. Also, I'm at stage II. So, I've been sitting with this diagnosis for nearly 3 weeks, and I've had every range of emotional reaction possible. Shock, fear, confusion (cancer runs in my family...rampantly, but not this particular kind), anger, disappointment, more fear, terror, acceptance, and determination, and back again. To say 2020 has been a rough year is a bit of an understatement. Just two months ago, I was running a successful and popular page on Facebook called The Articulate Autistic, (which I had to close down for reasons I don't want to get into or discuss at this time). Two weeks later, boom, breas...