Breast cancer sucks!

I'm mad and angry and want to scream and I want to sit down and cry. I mostly want to do the crying part. I hate breast cancer and I especially hate it for the younger women who get it who have children and babies and these kids could potentially never know their moms because this horrible gosh awful SHITTY disease is killing them. I'm on a bulletin board with the Young Survival Coalition and there is a wonderful kind smart sassy woman on there dying of breast cancer. She has just DAYS to live. She wrote a post awhile ago to comfort the new women that were coming there and scared. Her screen name is Mama Cathy and even though she is about the same age as I am, it felt like she was a mama to so many of us. This is what she wrote and I doubt she ever thought it would be about her.

Mama Cathy, I love you to pieces. You are so loved by the women of the YSC boar. Words fail me to describe how you mean to us and what you have done for so many women.

It's happening again.

Every once in a while the board goes through a really tough time. Our hearts break for our sisters whose cancers are spreading at frightening rates. We see their selfless, innocent posts that detail the cancer taking over. How they feel, what they're thinking. What they need. The struggle, the powelessness, the strength and courage.

I just wanted to pull all you newbies in close and let you know that we've all been there and you are probably absolutely freaking out right now. Chemo has beaten you up, you feel like a shadow of who you used to be. Tired, depressed and overwhlemed. You may even feel guilty because you are not only sad for these beautiful women, but you are sad FOR YOU.

You see yourself in every one of these women that becomes so very sick and then loses the battle.It's normal to feel this way and it's OK. We understand and so do they. Your mother may not, your husband may not. your friends may not, but we do.And there's nothing wrong with feeling sad and getting angry.

But please remember that the odds are that YOU are going to get better. YOU are going to get your hair back and start to feel well again. YOU are going to get back to the life that you want to lead.

So if you are checking the boards incessently right now, reading the latest post, then sobbing and then going back for more.....been there too. You are grieving....this disease is not fair....it's disgusting and ugly and perverse. And it's so much more unfair to certain sisters than others. And there's nothing fair about that.So grieve for them. Grieve for you. And then remember that you will get better.

Love,cathy