The world continued around me even though it felt like mine was falling a part.

My children still had to get up and go to school. I still had a job (that one that I just started in August). I had to continue to get up out of bed each morning and figure out how to make it through the day.

In 2003, my girls were 8 and 5, respectively. They did not understand what was going on with mom. They just knew that I was home and that climbing on me was uncomfortable for me, but as any mom will attest, the best medicine is a good snuggle from her kids.

Somehow I made it through the weekend and Wednesday came. It was time to go back to the hospital for round 2 of the lumpectomy. In addition to trying to get clear margins around the tumor, the surgeon was also going to remove some lymph nodes to determine if the cancer had gone beyond the breast.

I don’t remember much about the surgery or coming home that day.

What I do remember is getting a referral to an oncologist.

Sometime during the next week (it really all becomes a blur once you’ve been told you have cancer) we went for the initial consultation with the oncologist. My husband and I went with a laundry list of questions. The doctor answered our questions gently, but honestly. We were in the room with him for close to an hour.

I felt That a man who would take an hour with a patient to answer all of the questions that we had was someone that I could trust with my life.

The oncologist had received all of my pathology reports. He was the one that told me that my cancer was considered Stage 3 due to the size of the tumor and the fact that some of the lymph nodes were “involved.”  In other words, some of the lymph nodes that were sent to pathology had cancer markers in them.

Ouch. When hearing that the margins were clear there was still a little hope that the original pathology report had gotten mixed up. But when I heard that the nodes were “involved” it was obvious to anyone that there was no mistake. At least not by the pathology lab.

In my mind, there was still a mistake, I’m just not sure who or what to blame for the mistake. This was all surreal. No one in my family has cancer.

Obviously one of our questions was “what are our odds?” What if we don’t do chemotherapy, what if we do? What kind of life expectancy are we looking at? Although you aren’t sure you want to know the answer, you have to ask. Since my cancer was already in my lymph nodes, the life expectancy without chemo was not great (yes, I know, there are all sorts of miracles out there that people will suggest, this is not about that right now.) The life expectancy with chemo increased greatly. In the back of my head I remember thinking that if chemo gave me 10-15 years I could see my oldest daughter graduate from high school and maybe my youngest daughter too. Whether that is the exact number the doctor gave us I couldn’t tell you (but as of this writing it has been almost 12 years!)

As the doctor answered our questions, he laid out a treatment plan. I was going to begin chemotherapy on November 6.

Chemo would consist of 8 treatments and then I would meet with a radiation oncologist for a radiation treatment regimen as well.

Chemo consisted of 4 treatments of Adriamycin Cytoxan (known by many in the new world I was entering as ‘The Red Devil’ due to its color) followed by 4 treatments of Taxol or Taxatere each treatment would be about 3 weeks apart.

These names are scary and the papers they give you to read about them are even scarier. The side effects alone are enough to make you want to run screaming away. Did I mention that I didn’t feel bad at all before all of this started. I was a healthy wife and mother. What is happening?

More good news from the doctor. He told me that it would be best to have a port ‘put in’ so that the chemo would be easier to administer.

A port? Are you telling me I have to have another procedure done?

What is a port-o-cath? It is a device that a surgeon inserts into your body. It is a central IV line that makes it easier to administer the chemo so your veins do not collapse during so many chemotherapy procedures and blood draws. Oh the things you learn that you really never wanted to.

It was the middle of October, I had already had 2 surgeries and I still had one more to go before we could even start the treatments outlined by the oncologist. Time to call the surgeon and make another appointment.

Halloween would be coming up soon and I was beginning to feel like the Bride of Frankenstein