Hi friends– It's been a hard month and a half (!) since my last update. Thanks for continuing to check in 💛 

I'll save more of the emotional processing for 1:1 conversation, but the big update is that I'm doing chemotherapy and it's starting this Friday, 12/19.

It'll be 4 infusions – one every 3 weeks. Side effects can be staggered throughout treatment and include hair loss, fatigue, nausea, changes in taste/appetite, diarrhea, constipation, immunosuppression, mouth sores, low blood counts, bone pain, nail changes, rashes, neuropathy, fluid retention. I might be dealing with some, or all, of these next time we talk.

I was already moving towards chemo, despite its unknown benefits. However, I received some bad news recently that makes chemotherapy more or less required: cancer has spread to my lymph nodes. It was probably there before my mastectomy but it was only found now.

In addition to chemo, this means I need another surgery to remove any affected lymph nodes. It will likely be scheduled in the spring after I recover from chemo.

It's hard for the head and the heart to keep up with the slow drip of bad news. I was watching a retrospective Google made of selfies I took this past year and I can't understand how just a few months ago, I was hiking across Spain with two boobs and no cares.

Thank you, as always, for reading and for your continued check-ins. We'll be reopening the meal train schedule in January when David and I are back from travel and I have a better sense of what foods I can tolerate. 💛