My Breast Cancer Diagnosis Helped Me Find Forgiveness

My ex-husband was remarkably on the receiving end

I did not tell anyone that I thought I might have cancer before our family left for vacation. In an attempt to get my young daughters away from the hectic rhythm of our post-divorce life that included my grad school studies, bartending, and working two jobs, I planned a trip to Disney.

Converting my family of four to a family of three had proven much more challenging than I anticipated. In a desperate attempt to re-create the family I had willingly given up when I divorced Matt, I planned an expensive vacation that I put entirely on credit cards with the hope that I could reconnect with my daughters.

My annual mammogram fell a month before our trip, six months before my fortieth birthday. My best friend, Lesley, died of breast cancer a few years prior at 33. Before she died, she made me promise never to miss my annual mammogram. Instinctively, on the day of my mammogram, I knew that putting my family back together was not the only thing I would have to worry about.

“Don’t get dressed yet. We need a closer look,” the technician said through the paper-thin curtain. Of course, you do. I looked in the mirror at my left breast and placed my hand to the side gently pausing at the spot that two months later would be home to my surgical scar. I knew in that moment, that along my chest wall, in the back of my breast, in a place I never would have felt it, I had a malignant lump.

The weeks that followed moved at a deliberate pace. I kept my focus on my trip to Florida with Katie and Kirsten and on rebuilding my family. When my doctor called to report the results of my mammogram, I knew I could no longer hide from cancer behind my broken family

“If you’re calling me in person, this can’t be good news, can it?

“There is a shadow, It’s likely calcifications so don’t panic. But you should have it checked out. You’re pretty young to get breast cancer”

I thought of Lesley who had been too young to get it as well; I attended her funeral just two years earlier.

“What am I looking at?”