The Big C

2011-What the fuck.

I wrote a few posts back about the Christchurch Earthquake and how my mum had been there when it happened...she made it home safely thank goodness....and then found herself thrown headfirst into a new challenge. On Friday she told us she has just been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She had noticed a mass in her breast had grown larger while she was away in Christchurch and so decided to have it checked out last week...she had an ultrasound and biopsy and it was confirmed that it was stage one cancer-she had had a mammogram only back in November but apparently this particular kind is hard to pick up so luckily she noticed the change herself.
 They have caught it early thank goodness-but she is meeting with a surgeon tomorrow to discuss treatment options-she will either have a partial mastectomy or if there is a risk of them not getting it all-she's prepared to have a double mastectomy and reconstruction-this will all be happening over the next few weeks we think.

I was completely shocked when she told me....cancer has always been this huge fear for me-but to actually hear my mum say she has it really threw me. She told me yesterday how she was so suprised at how I have handled the news so far though-she thought I would have been distraught over it, but I think my immediate thought after the news had sunk in, was that she would be okay. I think I find it hard to process things fully when I don't have all the information though too-so I don't feel like I can fully understand it all until we find out tomorrow what and when her surgery will be.My mum is quite a trooper and we are a close knit family(I have 2 sisters also) and I think the fact that mum and dad have been so open about it all so far has helped, keeping the humour alive has also helped- mum has been teasing dad about how it's taken her getting cancer to finally get him to do all of those odd jobs around the house that have been put off for years-he was a busy man this weekend!

I guess in a way, the cancelled FET has been a bit of a blessing in disguise- my embryo transfer had been scheduled for around 10:30 on Friday-which is just about the time that mum told us her news-and we were keeping transfer day a secret so she wouldn't have known either.So it would have been a bit much for me to handle and I would have felt extremely stressed out that day.

This time around I will be keeping mum up to date with what's happening and when our transfer is as I know she wants to be a part of it all and I just hope that we have some exciting news to give her in about 4 weeks time.

I really can't believe this year so far-I had such high hopes for it and it's certainly been challenging- not just for me but for family and some special friends too who have had disappointments lately.
All we can do is keep charging through these brick walls that keep popping up in front of us and hope that behind one of them is our happy ending.