Posted

Aug 29th 2008

Mood

Depressed

Music

"Yellow" Coldplay

My mom has cancer.

Granted, it's nothing super serious; it's melanoma. But cancer is cancer. I know of all the cancers to get, Melanoma is probably the best one. It's easy to treat, least likely to spread, and has an almost 100% cure rate. It's not hereditary. It's hardly painful. Of all the cancers for my mother to get, this would be the ideal one.

Hasn't stopped me from worrying about it, being the slight hypochondriac that I am. I know it's not genetic....

But breast cancer is.

Turns out my grandmother has (or is it had?) breast cancer. On Wednesday, she had a mastectomy (aka, she has one of her breasts removed). Supposedly, they got all the cancer, and her lymph nodes are clean.

The problem? No one in the family knew about it until yesterday.

They said it was to keep us from worrying. Naturally, it horrified the entire family. I went to the hospital last night to see my grandmother, and she seemed just fine, but I couldn't help but think... what if she hadn't been? What if something happened, and we didn't get to say goodbye to her?

Now I'm paranoid.

Breast cancer? What if I get it? What if my aunt gets it? What if my mom gets it?
I don't know what I would do.

I've been told, time and time again, that the best way to find breast cancer is to have your mammograms, and do self examinations. I was never taught how to do a self examination, because in catholic school, we don't talk about things like breasts or touching breasts. I wouldn't even know what to look for. I mean, I know people say that it's lumps or tenderness, but... mine have always been a little tender. And lumpy. My physiology teacher said that was normal.

So what is abnormal?

I've always been afraid of getting cancer. Any cancer. All cancer.

Suddenly the fear seems justified.

So no, I'm not okay. It's really hard to have two people you love both tell you they have cancer in the same week.