Twas the night before my mastectomy, when all through the lake, not a creature was stirring, not even a snake. The sage was lit around the circle with care, in hopes that a yew tree would be planted there. Ah, the humble yew tree. As anyone who has read a prior post entitled, ''Agony and the Yew Tree'' knows, one of my past chemo meds, Taxol, is derived from a yew tree. Since chemotherapy has played such a significant role in saving my life, I felt it was important to properly thank Mother Earth for creating it. Let me stop right here to add something before we continue; I am not a religious person. In fact, the very thought of begging for my life to an all-knowing, all-powerful God makes me want to cringe. Why? Because why has he put me in this situation in the first place? And it's not because ''everything happens for a reason'', or it's ''God's plan''. It's because sometimes people just get cancer. ...
Join me on my journey down the rabbit hole of Cancer Land! Treatment, divorce, parenthood, teaching and dating while learning to navigate my new life as a metavivor. My sordid tale begins on April 17, 2017 at age 33 when I was diagnosed with Stage II Invasive Ductal Carcinoma Triple Negative Breast Cancer and continues with my new Stage IV diagnosis exactly two years later on April 17, 2019.