Thrive to 105

Somewhere recently I read that on the date of your birthday each month you should do something you’ve never done before to celebrate all year long.   I thought that sounded like a cool idea; and when I began to try and think about things I’d be willing to do that I’d never done before, it was rather challenging…at least challenging to come up with things I could afford and was geographically able to do.

It never occurred to me that on the 13th of January (my birth date is the 13th of November), the thing I’ve never done would be having a biopsy on a lump in my breast and that the following day I’d be told I have breast cancer.  NOT POSSIBLE!!!  That’s what I want to tell them.  It can’t happen to me!  I’m planning to Thrive to 105!  Somehow cancer isn’t synonymous with thriving!

So much for the power of positive thinking, I think to myself…and actually mumble to others who love me and are trying to comfort me.  I was so sure when they found the lump it would be nothing but a cyst.  Then I was so sure that when they did the biopsy, it would be a papilloma…benign.  Now I’m faced with the specter of a mutilated breast at best or at the worst case, a mastectomy!  How…why…did this happen to me?  No doubt that is what every woman thinks when given this diagnosis.

I’m not the most diligent, health-obsessed person running around St. Louis; but I’m far from being unhealthy!  I don’t smoke, rarely drink, eat mostly healthy (except for desserts), used to exercise (and I promised myself I’d get back to it in my new apartment complex).  So why…how?

Of course I now agonize over the fact that I missed one year of having my mammograms…2008.  Why did I miss that one year?  I really don’t have a good reason.  If I had gone, would they have found it sooner before it became “invasive”?  I guess it really doesn’t matter.  As Mom so accurately advised last night, I can’t worry about what’s past and I shouldn’t worry about what hasn’t happened yet that I don’t know will happen.  So whether or not the lump was there since 2008, it doesn’t matter.  What matters is taking care of it now!

I vacillate between feeling angry and aggressive about it….okay, let’s get this over and done with so I can move on with the next 50 years of my life…and feeling scared…of the unknown, of being weak, of the possibility of losing my breast.  Those who know me best know I have a quiet independence about me, and I’m generally far from weak.  I have my moments (and I definitely had a few last night), but overall a victim mentality and pessimism is not my style.

So today I start a new chapter in the next half century of my life!  Thankfully, I am moving into a new apartment today!  Thankfully, because it is something that will distract me from dwelling on something I can’t change right at this moment.  Thankfully, because it is something happy and new that will counter-balance the news I was delivered yesterday.

I still intend to Thrive to 105!!  I refuse to let a few rogue cells rob me of 50 more years of joy and laughter, family and friends, work and play, love and life!!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.