Yesterday started out like any regular Monday. Unfortunately it ended with me in tears, throwing a no-holds-barred temper tantrum in the doctor´s office. Despite my passionate and sorrowful pleas, here I am, back at Clinica Alemana, pissed off and swollen-eyed, wishing I was at school, or really anywhere that they doesn´t serve you sickeningly sweet…
This week has not been the most fun week of my life, but in a way it was cathartic, as it signaled the final step in my long journey to recovery. On Tuesday afternoon I received reconstructive surgery on both breasts in an attempt to make my body look normal again after my mastectomy last…
A year is comprised of 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes and countless seconds. Depending on your circumstances, a year can drag by as slowly as a thousand dreary afternoons waiting in line at a civil service office. Or it can go by so quickly that you feel the force of its…
This isn´t the sexiest title I´ve ever come up with, but I do have some more cancer related information to impart to you, so this will have to do. Today is Saturday and here I am, bright and early at Clinica Alemana, receiving my antibody treatment. Jon was a trooper and set the alarm at…
Have you ever had one of those days that are so full of joy that you just want to bottle the euphoria up in a jar and save it forever? Last Sunday, teetering on my skis high atop a snowy mountain in the Andes, I wanted to do just that. There I was, 10…
It´s official: Friday, July 12th, I finished active treatment for stage four breast cancer!!! After eight cycles of chemotherapy, a mastectomy surgery, 25 days of radiation, and ten months of emotional hell, I can now focus on putting cancer in my rear view mirror and attempt to regain a sense of normalcy in my life.…
Neither my mother nor I seem to remember where the nickname Mimsa actually came from. I vaguely recall it being an adaptation of the name Simba, the adorable cub in the Lion King. I clearly remember falling in love with that movie and requesting the Elton John soundtrack tape ad nauseum on several years´…
One of the most bittersweet and truly extraordinary aspects of life is our ability to experience a wide range of emotions in a very short amount of time. One minute you can be drowning in fear… the next, smiling cheek to cheek after receiving good news. Life is unexpected and we have very little control…
……That is the question that was finally answered by my doctors last week. And the answer is, unfortunately, YES: we are going ahead with radiation. Two Fridays ago I spoke with Dr. Majlis about the next (and hopefully final) step in the plan for my treatment. When I entered the room he casually laid back…
Well, I´m sure a lot of you read last week about Ms. Jolie´s decision to have a preventative double mastectomy because she tested positive for the genetic mutation, BRCA1. The test indicated that she had an 87% risk of having breast cancer in the future. After reading the article about her decision on my beloved…
The Luckiest Unlucky Girl 