Lericha

Stage 2

“Cancer is unpredictable but I kicked it’s ass, I was not going to bring me down!”

When I was diagnosed in Jan. at age 27 I was not expecting it at all! I went in to see the doctor all by myself, as I was sure she would say it’s nothing, instead ”Yes it’s cancer, a rare & aggressive cancer!” I probably felt what I thought was a lump in my breast for over 6 months & didn’t think to do anything urgently, mainly because the doctors said it’s probably nothing, I am too young. W/ a family history of breast cancer the doctors never tested me for a BRCA mutation or warned against signs to look out for.⁠

Appointment after appointment w/ a lot of information is given to you & you have to make life-changing decisions quickly. My MRI showed no lymph node involvement, a positive result, so we just had to see how the 2.5cm tumor responded to chemotherapy. I had 12x Taxol/Carboplatin, a double mastectomy & then 4x Epirubicin/Cyclophosphamide (The Red Devil). My body handled chemo w/ minimal side effects I think but I cried unexpectedly, I lost my boobs & my hair because of cancer, I lost my choice to conceive naturally & I developed a superficial blood clot around my portacath which meant I had to start injecting myself daily w/ Fragmin, I hate needles! I still counted my lucky stars for going through this w/ such ease. Your support team definitely makes all the difference & I’ve got a huge one!

Deciding to go ahead w/ a bilateral mastectomy even though I tested negative for the BRCA gene mutation was one of the hardest decisions I had to make to date. I am glad I did it in order to remove the stress of future check-ups though. I cried & cried leading up to surgery like I was mourning but over 10 weeks on I’m almost feeling normal again. It was slow at first & it still feels different but it gets easier. My surgeon was able to do the mastectomies, spare my nipples & reconstruct immediately, which helped so much w/ feeling normal! No cancer was detected after surgery thanks to the first round of chemo!⁠

I can’t thank my support team enough for everything. We take normal for granted but I can’t wait to return to normal life! Cancer is unpredictable but I kicked it’s ass, I was not going to bring me down!