IN MY HEAD. YOU TOO?

If you are anything like me, you are in your head a lot. And it’s often not about good things. Questions and statements like

• “why did this happen to me”

• “I’m not a bad person” or

• “I have never smoked a day in my life” and “I don’t even really drink alcohol” may go through your mind.

  You may even think about how devoted to God you have been. On the other hand, you may think that this happened to you because you haven’t been devoted enough. Maybe you haven’t prayed the way you think you should have or you haven’t been reading your Bible the way thatyou think you should. Or maybe you are a full out atheist. Whereever your thoughts may have taken you, one place it certainly has taken many of us is “what did I do to make this happen?”

While there are a lot of things linked to breast cancer, there is not a ton that we have control over. From hormones to genetics to lifestyle choices, we don’t get to say whether this disease impacts us. Even more, many of us didn’t have a warning sign to say that breast cancer is something that we should be definitely on the lookout for. Instead, you were living your best life [on the beach of Miami about to start a new role] when you received your diagnosis. Just me? Nahhhhh.

To make it even worse, I’m on my second diagnosis (over here beating stage 4 breast cancer as we talk). This time around, my grandmother had just passed, I’d completed training to become a foster parent, and we’d become foster parents. I’d even starting seeing the fact that I’d previously had breast cancer surreeal.

Then I started having back pains, chest pains, and a couch. One trip to urgent care, and there I was looking at lumps on my chart. WHAT THE ENTIRE EFF? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN AGAIN? AND HOW ARE THERE SO MANY LUMPS?

I S.O.B.B.E.D.

Right there. In the office. I soobbed.