worth living

a couple of months ago i found out that i have the brca1 gene mutation. that's the breast and ovarian cancer gene. it really wasn't a surprise since my mom found out a few months before me that she has it, too. she's also had fallopian tube cancer. a number of women before us, including my grandmother, had breast cancer. no surprise, then, to find out it's in our genes.

 i had a few minutes to cry it out before i toughened up and said, "let's do it," to all the aggressive treatments my genetic counselor laid out. treatments like a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO)  and a bilateral simple mastectomy. i don't think i really hesitated before agreeing to it because it's life, right? i mean, isn't that the goal? living?

well, based on everyone else's opinion, you would have thought otherwise which made me start to second guess myself. i finally reached out to the one i always turn to because she is so wise. she said, "First, you have to stay alive. Second, those surgeries won't rob you of years of your life like cancer will. And third, reconstructed boobs look awesome in tank tops." sold! and then she said, "If you knew for certain that your plane had an 87% chance of crashing you would never get on that fucking plane." see why i love this woman?  later on she also said, "you are worth more than the sum of your parts." i sure am.

i was never really attached to my parts anyway. i mean, i have two precious kids and that, to me, is quite enough. in fact, i would say my cup runneth over. getting pregnant and carrying babies to term don't come easy for me. it's months of stress and bed rest and every day wondering if there is still life in there. secondly, i wasn't blessed with great breasts. they were lopsided and annoying. and, for a second there, they thought i had a third one. when the running joke in my family is about my breasts, you know it's bad.

i had the oophorectomy in january and it wasn't bad. it was a few days of pain and then life resumed. menopause isn't as bad as it's cracked up to be. two weeks ago, i woke up after the mastectomy screaming in pain and i cried to my husband, "i made a mistake!" he assured me i did not. the first day i took a shower, i looked in the mirror and broke down in tears. a bilateral mastectomy is not pretty, my friends. it's ugly and gut-wrenching. it took many hours locked in the bathroom staring at myself in the mirror before i was able to hold my head high and declare, "i am strong, i am beautiful and i am alive!" that was a big step. because even though i originally chose life, there were moments during that first week of recovery when i changed my mind. it took a whole lotta love from a whole lotta people, two little ones in particular, to pull me through.

which brings me to my photo. that little artichoke is a miracle. i planted two artichoke plants last year. they started to grow and then it looked like they were dying. i gave up on them. then all of a sudden, in the middle of the hottest months, the plants started to grow. i gave them a little love, they wilted. i ignored them, they thrived. i gave them a little more love, they wilted. i ignored them a little more, they thrived. and now? they are huge and there is a little artichoke growing! sometimes we're dealt a heavy load and sometimes we just want to wilt away and disappear but, ultimately, we have the strength to get through to the other side and life is beautiful. sometimes, it just takes a whole lotta love for amazing things to happen.