Receiving life changing news

I have never imagined myself to be someone who would ever receive life changing news; I mean, you read about these stories all the time and you empathise with people who are going through traumas, however you never really understand what they are going through until it happens to you.

Just over three weeks ago, I went to see a GP for my annual doctor visit. The main purpose of my visit was to fulfill an annual prescription, so you can imagine the surprise I got when the GP insisted on doing a breast check; something I have never been offered nor had before. The GP found a lump and asked me to get it checked out as soon as I can.

Two days later, I was at a specialist having a mammogram (and oh yes, they are as awkward as everyone says they are!), ultra sound and then biopsies. I had ducked out of the office believing I was going to be one hour. So focused on getting back to the office within the hour, I realised it was going to take much longer than the hour I envisaged when two hours later, the specialist didn't even look like letting me go! I had no idea what was going through her mind.....I cleared my meetings for the rest of that day.

After all of the needles and prodding (yes I felt like a pin cushion!) I decided to ask the specialist a few more questions. After asking her once innocent question, I got this response;

"Susie, what we are seeing here today is extremely worrying to us which is why we are being so agressive with you today. You have abnormalities that we can see, which are not in line with benign tumours and there is a high chance that when we receive the results tomorrow, it will be confirmed that you have breast cancer"

I was stunned and lost for words. What, how, why...... what does this mean?
The results were confirmed the following day (after I spent the day in the office convincing myself this couldn't be possible) that I had multi focal breast cancer. I broke down and felt like my entire world had come crashing down on top of me....

This was the beginning of what I didn't realise would become a life changing journey for me....