Cliche, but true – it’s always darkest before the dawn. My surgery was ten days ago; each day has gotten progressively better, but all told this has been the most difficult ten days, culminating four and a half months of challenging days.

My surgeon called tonight. Alway a momentus event, to get a call from a Dr after hours – either really good news, or really bad news. The last time it happened, it was to talk about my breast cancer diagnoses. I’m still processing that information. Tonight, it was to tell me that I’m cancer free. They got it all during the surgery – which was 8.5 hours long (2.5 hours longer than expected, due to the massive amount of, um, material – my DD’s went down with a fight).

What a fabulous Christmas present, right? Honestly though – I’m numb. I’m not sure what this means, other than I will not die from this breast cancer. Frankly, I didn’t realize I was afraid of that until this evening’s phone call. When I first met with my Oncologist, she told me “this will not kill you. A year from now, you will be sitting across from me, with hair on your head.” I believed her implicitly, it was what I needed to do to get through the next few months. But now, I KNOW it’s true. What do I do with that?