I'm finally ready to talk about it

I feel like it's time to get a little personal

The last few months have been flipped upside down. Nothing to do with my pregnancy, everything is going great there. 

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Those who know me really well know that my mother is my best friend. I don't know what I would do with out her. Especially right now when I'm about to make her a grandmother. I need her. 

I cannot thank my mother enough for being soooo good on going in for her yearly mammograms. Though by no means has this been easy even though the Dr. caught it early. Here is here recovery story as of now, it's not over, but it's looking good and we are so lucky. 

Her story:

The Dr. found a small pea size lump on her left breast through an x-ray. The mass was hardly noticeable to the touch. Even after the Dr. showed her where it was, she still had to really concentrate on trying to find it. It was determined that she needed to have a lumpectomy (surgery where they only remove the cancer lump and maybe some tissue around it for testing). The test results came back a few weeks later and said that she had some pre-cancer cells around the area they were working, so they needed to do a second surgery to remove more tissue. So she went in again, my dad was out of town on business so I stayed with her a few days to make sure everything was okay. She did great, she heals very fast. A few weeks later more test results came back and the Dr. told her that she has pre-cancer cells all over her left breast so a mastectomy (removal of the entire left breast including nipple) would be her best option at this point. The Dr. also told her that there was some good news, her test results also showed that her lymph nodes were clear of cancer cells which means that the cancer has not spread out through the breast to the rest of the body. That's the best news a breast cancer patient can hear!

So, my mother being the brave women she is went in just a few weeks later for a 3rd, more extensive, surgery. This surgery lasted all day. Her regular surgeon did her thing, than a plastic surgeon went in right after to do a "temporary" implant so that my mom didn't have to go with out a "lump." . So again, I stayed with her, this time a lot longer. This surgery was a lot tougher recovery. She was in a great deal of pain, it was very heard to watch. But she is a tough women and it's been about 2 weeks now and she is doing much better. Her favorite part about this whole thing is that in 3 months when everything has completely healed she will get the permeant implant in her left breast and since they are making that one look nice, they are going to make the right one match. My mom is telling everyone who knows about her situation that she is getting 20 year old boobs and she couldn't be more excited about that. It's not over yet though, we find out in a few weeks after extensive testing is done on the tissue if she needs to have chemo therapy. We are hoping not cause I don't want her to loose her hair, but we'll see.

The reason I'm getting so personal in the blog is that maybe this story will help others. Early detection in the key! Incase you are wondering, there is no history of breast cancer in her family that we know of. It just happens sometimes. With how quickly this spread over her left breast, who knows what would have happened if this went untreated for years. Here's some hard facts my mom's Dr gave her:

1 in 7 women will get breast cancer in their lifetime 

That risk increases to about 1 in 5 over the age of 50

This is a HUGE number! 

Early detection is the key