Six months after I was diagnosed with Immature Teratoma of the Ovary a dear friend of mine was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She chose to go public with her battle. I chose to keep mine private.
Our treatment plans were different. While I underwent Hysterectomy surgery immediately after diagnosis and did three follow up rounds of swallowing a medication each morning that initiated cell death, she had several rounds of Chemotherapy followed by a Mastectomy.
She posted every day on Facebook and Instagram. She was traveling here, going to parties there, toasting cocktails with these people, eating lobster dinner with those people and here I was at home hugging a toilet.
She posted photos of herself and her husband shaving their heads together. I posted photos of my cats.
She became a hero, a fighter, someone everyone admired while I struggled to find a comfortable position to lay in stitched up like Frankenstein.
One day I asked, Where do you find the energy to do all this stuff?
It’s what everyone expects me to do so I just do it, she said.
Months had passed. I was on the mend and after her first run with Chemotherapy failed she was given a different trial series and was finally ready for…