Happy Birthday to Me!

July 15th is the day that I heard the words that pushed me from a life of carefree existence to a lifetime of spiritual liberation. “I am sorry, it’s cancer” are the words that were uttered from the other side of the line. A phone call that I had been dreading all weekend. My lymph node biopsy was done on a Friday leaving me about 60 plus hours to contemplate what life held in store for me.

I had read almost all  medical articles that I could find online on causes of lympadenopathy ( swollen lymph nodes) in the axilla (arm pit)  and the physician part of me had concluded with some audacity that the primary resided in breast.

Normally weekends feel short and are over in the blink of an eye but that weekend lasted a life time. I had already “seen” my funeral, my mastectomy, chemotherapy treatments, the…