Today was a tough day.

I don’t know if it was the local anesthetic wearing off or the pathology report appearing in my portal that set the tone for the day’s gloom. Maybe it was both, a cocktail of physical pain and emotional weight that sent me over the edge. Back into the abyss of the unknown.

A bit of anger sets in when I think about how close we all live to the edge, how fast the pendulum of fate can swing. One image. One test. One quiet enhancement missed. And everything changes.

I keep replaying the moment with my first breast surgeon. She was walking me through my MRI images, showing me the right breast where the cancer had been identified. I couldn’t help but notice something on the left breast; it looked similar to what she’d just pointed out. “What is that on my left breast?” I asked. “Oh, that must not have been enough of an enhancement for the radiologist to pick up on it,” she said. “I’ll run it by my team.”

I was on the fence about getting a second opinion. The bedside manner of the team was incredible, and I felt cared for. But that little voice in me was uneasy.

Before surgery, I had a routine pre op mammogram. I didn’t even bring my husband. It felt like a formality. But after a few image retakes, the radiologist called me in.

“I was so surprised by your biopsy result,” she said.

I thought, “Who are you?”

She explained she was the one who had flagged the original enhancement. Because of my age and the high rate of false positives, she said they almost didn’t move forward with the biopsy. But she did. And she was sure it would be benign.

It wasn’t.

Now, two more enhancements had appeared on my right breast. But since the mastectomy was already scheduled, she left it to the surgeon to decide whether additional biopsies were necessary. Why biopsy what would be removed anyway?

I had already decided on a double mastectomy. The risk of recurrence in the opposite breast was too high. And honestly, the emotional weight of keeping one breast while losing the other felt cruel. I didn’t want to feel lopsided. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But those two new spots sealed it. I needed a second opinion.

At the second hospital, a place with prestige and reputation, I still couldn’t shake the sense of looming danger. The second surgeon confirmed it: her team also saw the enhancement in the left breast. Their recommendation? Remove lymph nodes from both sides.

I went back to my original surgeon with this new information. I was curious how she’d respond. To her credit, she listened. Thought out loud. Processed. And adjusted the surgical plan. She agreed: removing lymph nodes on both sides was the safer move. Ego didn’t win. Humility did.

The morning of surgery was chaos. Our son with special needs had a rectal prolapse that morning. Our daughter had been suspended the day before for biting and had hand foot and mouth, so she came with us to the hospital. My dad met us there to take her for the day. All this before a double mastectomy.

I tried to keep calm by playing music. “Meet Me at Our Spot” by Willow Smith. That’s the one that broke my husband. It hit him: his wife was about to have her breasts removed.

Then I played “I Hope You Dance.” That was my mom’s song for me. Since she has now passed, it speaks to me even more. Now it’s my song for my daughters. As we pulled into the hospital, the same one where my mom gave birth to me almost 43 years ago, I suddenly felt like both the mother and the daughter. Terrified, brave, small, strong. All of it.

I looked each provider in the eye before they wheeled me back. They needed to know I have babies who need me. They needed to be on.

And they were. The surgery went well.

But today, I opened my pathology report.

That left breast? The one no one flagged seriously until I did…

It had cancer. More aggressive than the original breast. The kind that loves to come back. The kind that might need more treatment.

I meet with the doctor in two days, well, with the PA, since my doctor had a death in the family. And so I wait again. In that place between knowing and not knowing. Between relief and fear.

The unknown is the hell where you wait for your sentencing. Knowing is scary. But not knowing is worse.

This isn’t just a story about breasts or biopsies or surgical plans.

This is a story about intuition. About advocating for yourself when the data says no but your gut says yes. About being the mother and the child. About being brave and broken at the same time.

And about still showing up. Because your story matters, even when it hurts to tell it.