The Kindness of Strangers

My "Rack Pack" from an amazing group of people.

Yesterday a very nice girl named Sarah came to my house, she has never met me before, but she heard from another woman that I have breast cancer. She brought me a care package that was truly amazing. It was a chemotherapy care package that literally included everything you could possibly think of – a blanket, fuzzy socks, mints, snacks, sudoku, thank you cards, a journal, earrings, a cute cancer awareness hat, and a bajillion other things (bajillion is a real number… I swear… good thing I wasn’t a math major). Sarah was from The Christi Anderson Rack Pack Foundation, the foundation was started by friends and family of Christi Anderson who lost her battle with breast cancer February 7, 2010. I offer my condolences to the friends and family of such an amazing woman. Sarah offered me a ride if I needed it, someone to talk to, anything I needed was just a phone call away. Wow, this made my eyes tear up, how amazing that someone I have never met before in my life was so willing to offer her help and support never having met me before. Their message made me giggle was “Check Your Boobies!” I can’t agree more!

Candace from the young survivor sisters had given the Rack Pack my name. I had signed up for this group as I wanted to have contact with other young people who had battled with this challenge before. Candace called me last week and spent an hour talking through some of my fears and concerns. She also sent me a big document about her experience and covered just about anything you would need to prepare for and how to prepare for it. Her timing couldn’t have been better. I am going to try to attend a dinner that the group is putting together at the end of February if I am feeling up to it (I hear I will!).

There is also Michelle, she reached out to me shortly after I started my blog and has been a great support. She has the same team at the Huntsman and has been a kind person to be my “pen pal” while I have sorted through this most surprising experience this past month. It is so nice to have the perspective of someone at the tail end of this process just as I begin it. Especially the perspective of a kind soul (she also was able to calm me down during a couple of moments of sheer panic).

My surgery time on Friday:

  • I go in at 8:30 AM, which means I will probably actually be in surgery around 10:30 AM-ish

Mike will post surgical updates to http://www.facebook.com/darngoodlemonade as he gets them (they said that nurses will call him during surgery and give him updates). You don’t have to be on Facebook to check it, the page is public.

I called and got the PET/CT results, the showed cancer in my breast and lymph nodes (she said nodes plural, so I am going to assume they saw a couple more or so). I have a cyst or something in one of my vertebrae (makes me wonder if that is why I pull out my back super easily), and I have some brown fatty tissue – whatever that is – but it sounds gross.

Last but not least, my hair:

The hair that once was and is no more.

The hair that is.

P.S. I added mobile theme so that those trying to view my site, but couldn’t read it on an Android phone, you should be able to read it now.

P.P.S. I am getting a priesthood blessing from my father, brother, uncle, cousin and other family members tonight.

This also marks the beginning of my “radio silence” until I know I can/feel like typing. If I get to darn antsy I will dictate to Mike and have him update.

Updated:

My new t-shirt, it even came wrapped in lemon wrapping paper. 🙂

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Author: Mandi

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