There is no book to buy that is titled "What to do when your abusive-in-childhood mom has breast cancer, with whom you really have no relationship in adulthood other than to get fucking drive-by medical information in a casual email."

• What am I supposed to do with this?

• How am I supposed to feel?

• Who am I supposed to talk to? (I need another book titled "What to do if your in-laws are bigots" and "Friends abandon me because I'm mentally ill, Volume 3")

• How does this change my life?

Because it does… as an owner of breasts, I don't have a choice, this revelation affects me for the rest of my damn life. There's now a "history of cancer" but not just any cancer… THE cancer… the one we're told is coming for 1 in 8 of us Canadian breast owners.

Is social media going to shadow-ban me because I said breast too much?

Breast.

The full story is of course more complicated than any of that, but that was all my first train of thoughts. In order. The full story being that my mother at some point had a mammogram, which revealed something 'unusual', which even after a biopsy could not be deemed cancer or not, so they did a quadrantectomy after which time they determined it was pre-cancerous. They got good margins, but she'll still need radiation, which is wild. You can both "have cancer" and "not have cancer" at the same time apparently, but you'd still better treat it as if you do, because otherwise, it's coming back for you again.

It took a run at you and missed, but it's making a u-turn and coming back. And this time it's going to take your children with it.

What am I supposed to do with this.

Well it took me a good day to figure out how I was going to respond to my mother's drive-by dive-bomb medical update that's put my mental health on hiatus temporarily. But after much consideration, I decided I'd take her exact words to ME from when I tell her really anything about my life at any point in time.

"Thanks for the update."

Probably will go straight over her head I'm sure.

Moving on, I guess.

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#cancer #fuckcancer #breastcancer #precancer #family #mother #abuse #abusive #childhood #trauma #medical #diagnosis #blog #life #story #ramblings #mentalhealth #health