My story isn't inspirational at all.
I skipped my mammogram one year and I found a lump while I was in the shower. I really didn't think it was anything, I had no family history of cancer, so I made an appointment with the OBGYN and got in right away. My doctor didn't say anything but scheduled me for a mammogram and gave me some pamphlets on cancer. Had the mammogram and biopsy the next day and the breast doctor called me the following day and told me it was cancer, type 2A.
I never got upset. I just asked what we do next. I had a lumpectomy, chemo, radiation and I am on Tamoxifen. The doctors are so used to women being upset that I shook everyone up when I had a great attitude. I am not saying that it was easy because it was not. By the third round of chemo I was bald, sick, couldn't taste or smell anything and hurt everywhere. My husband never saw me bald. My kids, one was 19 and the other was 22, did see me bald but only because my daughter shaved my head and ran to the store to get me a knit cap.
I just had my third mammogram and it's all clear. The scars are almost all gone, my much thinner hair is back and I still can't smell anything. I know how hard it is but a lot of us just get through it and go on living our normal lives.
Irvine, CA