I’ve felt like there are monsters around every corner on this journey.
The kind that don’t just show up—they jump out. At test results. At appointments. At the quiet moments in between.
And more often than not…they’re scarier in my head than they are in reality.
The first monster was the biopsy.
Cancer.
That word alone felt big enough to take on everything else. And it’s the one I’ve been determined to slay from the start.
But as it turns out—this monster doesn’t travel alone.
It brought friends.
A third tumor found on MRI.
A shift from lumpectomy to mastectomy.
Every time I thought I had a handle on things…another one appeared.
That’s the tricky part.
Your mind gives those monsters power.
Fear starts to take over reality.
Before surgery, I convinced myself of all kinds of things—what if I didn’t make it through? It was a major procedure. I was losing a part of my body.
That felt like the biggest monster of all.
And then I got through it.
One down.
Only for the next one to step in.
Recovery.
Healing.
What if something went wrong?
It felt a little like a video game—fighting my way through levels, convinced the “big boss” was surgery day.
And while that was a big one…turns out, it wasn’t the last.
Because then came the waiting.
The lymph node pathology report.
Another monster, quietly sitting in the corner.
The results weren’t what I had hoped.
One lymph node positive. One negative.
Stage 1B.
Not the outcome I wanted—but also not the worst version of it.
Still…enough to shift the plan.
Radiation.
A delay in final reconstruction.
I let myself feel discouraged for a minute.
And then…back to it.
Still here. Still fighting.
Still slaying.
The next morning, my surgeon added another layer.
The oncotype test.
Two weeks of waiting.
Two weeks of wondering if there’s another monster hiding in the background.
There’s a 70% chance I won’t need chemo.
Which means there’s also a 30% chance that I will.
I thought chemo wasn’t part of my story. My type of cancer typically doesn’t respond to it.
But this test looks deeper—at the biology of the tumor itself.
So now we wait.
I have hope.
But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared.
I don’t want to be sick for months.
I don’t want to lose my hair.
And yet…here we are.
Hope is still stronger than fear.
That’s what I keep coming back to.
Today was my first post-op appointment.
Eight days after surgery.
And it was a good day.
A really good day.
Because I slayed a monster I had definitely built up in my head—
The drains.
Turns out, they weren’t nearly as scary as I imagined.
Annoying? Yes.
Uncomfortable? Definitely.
But not the monster I made them out to be.
They’re gone now.
Another win.
The steri-strips came off, and everything is healing well.
In 48 hours, I can shower like a normal person again.
Even better—I can snuggle Peppermint and Dasher.
I’ve missed them more than I expected.
Garrin is officially off couch duty.
Everyone wins.
I can start gently stretching, working on getting my range of motion back.
And next week—the first expander fill.
More steps forward.
More monsters to face.
But also…more proof that I can.
Because that’s what this has been teaching me, over and over again—
The monsters show up.
But they don’t get to stay.
Not if I have anything to say about it.
One day at a time.
One monster at a time.
