Knitting My Way Through Chemo

aka, I have an affected side.

As a health care provider I am wise to the ways of the cancer patient. No IVs, blood pressures or blood draws from the "affected side". Which is to say if the patient has breast cancer don't use the side of the body where the cancer was removed. Easy enough I always thought. Until I caught a little case of cancer myself. Suddenly I realized that I was affected. Not just a side but the whole me. Life was no longer going to be the same. I was gonna have to try and figure this whole cancer thing out, how I was going to approach the post-operative phase, the scars, the weirdness of do I or don't I now have breast cancer and best of all chemotherapy.

All of these years I've been the smug one. I got my original cancer at a relatively young age and it was totally curable. Ha, ha! Thyroid cancer was a relative breeze. Have the thyroid out, drink some nuclear waste to get rid of any lingering cells and then milk the diagnosis to death. Yes, that's right. I've had cancer. I'm like one of you! And I was smart enough to pick the good cancer. Brilliant I tell you. I had picked the good one.

So imagine my surprise one evening some 10 years later when I'm climbing out of the shower drying off and I feel a lump. Hmm? A lump? C'mon, what's this about? Well my friend this is about the most exciting challenge life has presented me yet. An adventure I'm about to share.