No, I don’t really feel brave in any of this. I’m just doing what follows naturally from these facts:

• There are people (including myself) who would like me to stay alive for a while yet.
• The cancer I have is fairly common and not as lethal as some, and it was caught early.
• Breast cancer research has been well funded in recent years. I therefore have access to treatment protocols that have been tested on other people with cancers similar to mine.
• My best chance of staying alive is to follow those. No need for new or exotic treatment.

This means:

• surgery (already done)
• chemotherapy (going on now until about mid-June)
• radiation (six weeks)
• and then hormonal treatment (five years)

All of these treatments together improve my odds such that I should have only about an 8% chance of this cancer recurring in the next ten years. (“What happens after ten years?” I asked Dr L, my oncologist. “We don’t know – we  don’t have any studies.”)

There was never any chance that I would not follow the best medical advice that I could find (and I have some great expertise on tap, both locally and remotely). In the immortal words of Randall Munro: “I take my weapons from science. Because they work, bitches.”

All that being the case: No, I don’t feel especially brave. I’m just putting one foot in front of the other, facing the next task before me, to stay alive for the sake of people I care about. Some of what I’m going through sucks royally, but it doesn’t really matter whether it’s easy or hard. It’s just… this thing I’ve gotta do.

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