Cancer At 35

– September 2023 –

I have this great friend, who’s more like a big sister. Alicia was one of the first people that I went to about my cancer diagnosis. She immediately saw me the next day, sat me down, and told me about a close acquaintance of hers who is in a similar predicament as I am.

Alicia didn’t know in detail about what her friend’s exact diagnosis were, but unfortunately she had to undergo mastectomy. But most importantly, she mentioned how her friend’s doctor had spent a grand total of 10 minutes in explaining her cancer diagnosis to her before setting her off. That’s not nearly enough time given to anyone who’s been hit with a terminal illness if you ask me.

They’d gone to seek a second opinion and the second doctor had said the same thing. Except that this doctor is also an accomplished reconstructive surgeon. They’ve been advised that during the mastectomy procedure, the surgeon could at the same time, take out some tissues from her back and reconstruct her breast. All done in one same surgery procedure.

So here Alicia had warned me on 2 things – pick a good surgeon, and there’s a risk of me requiring mastectomy.

To top it off, her friend’s nipple had fallen off 2 weeks after the surgery. She ended up having to get another cosmetics procedure much later to restore the nipple and to align the sizes of her breasts.

I couldn’t sleep a wink since.

Photo credit: https://soundcloud.com/farhanmusicworks/its-lonely-and-cold-in-here-but-im-happy