Tomorrow morning I will wake up as a whole woman for the last time in my life. The day has come for the bilateral mastectomy that I have been dreading for months. The chemo is finished, all the tests have been taken. By the end of tomorrow, I will be coming to, in a strange hospital bed, my body mutated by a surgeon's knife. I don't really know what cancer looks like, all I know is that it is the enemy. An enemy that has declared an all out war on my body, taking my breasts hostage. A war that I have been fighting with all my strength. I have yet to surrender, but I know that my chances of a complete victory are pretty slim.
I pray my surgeon gets all the cancer and that it hasn't filtrated my body, but I have no control over the outcome. I just have to keep on trusting the same Higher Power that I have been trusting my whole life. The power that let me live when I had bleeding tonsils at five years old. The power that gave me the strength as a single mother to raise my daughters, despite the fact that I still needed someone to finish raising me. The power that told me I had a purpose in life, when I was convinced I was useless.
When I found out I had cancer, it was as if I had been punched in the stomach by a wrecking ball. One that is permanently embedded. Knowing that I would have to go through the chemo marathon, holding on for dear life, while it grabbed me by the hair, until every last strand came out. Days full of fear, anger, melancholy, depression, and change. Looking through the dark, for the small gleam of hope that would tell me that it wasn't completely hopeless. The saddest part was knowing I would have to say goodbye to the people I love the most.
This journey has not been all gloom and doom. It has made me appreciate my life, the one that I had taken for granted. It has made me more accepting of myself and realizing that I'm not as bad as I used to think I was. It has opened up my heart and allowed me to let people in. People who want to help me, who don't make me feel like I'm a drain on them, which is the last thing in the world I would want. I want to be strong, but I want to let others help me when I can't do it on my own. For now, no matter what, the sun will come up tomorrow.