We all know someone who has had breast cancer.
I dont picture young women with breast cancer.
I wrote that inan article published October 29, 2016.
JON STOKES/Getty Images
Ten months later, at the age of 36, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Shows what I know.
I got the call on a Tuesday.
September 5, 2017, the day after Labor Day.
I scheduled an MRI for Thursday morning.
I called my husband.
Rosie and I looped around the north end of the park and I picked up her poop.
We crossed Second Avenue and went back to the apartment.
Then I went to work.
I typically open less than a third of the emails I get in a day.
Only rarely will the subject line on an email pitch entice me enough to click.
Its laziness dressed up as efficiency.
But after Labor Day, my ignoring became active, forceful, defiant, afraid.
Each subject line stung as I willfully, flinchingly refused to click.
BCA Stories - Meet Marit.
Breast Cancer Patients Use Art and Photography to Tell Their Stories.
Lessons From Rita Wilsons Breast Reconstruction Journey.
Fight Breast Cancer With Good Nutrition - Check out these tips!
Terminal cancer sparks a climbers new sense of motivation.
The pileup was unbearable.
I started filing each one as it appeared into a dedicated folder.
5 wellness tips to prevent breast cancerToo late.
Staying Positive on the Path to Breast Cancer SurvivalNot off to a great start.
BASE COAT Breast Cancer Awareness PromotionsOh, sure, a manicure!
Thats what I need!
Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Expert CommentaryIm aware.
Jesus Christ, Im fucking aware.
The onslaught was comical, painful.
And I felt like an asshole.
If ever there was a time in my life when I should be motivated to open my emails.
I could be a voice for these women!
I can save lives!
I should care more deeply and more personally than I have ever cared before!
The good is mine to do!
I hated these women I didnt know.
I didnt want to hear about, let alone write about, their tales of struggle and survival.
Id only just been initiated into the society of Breast Cancer Patients and already I was a traitor.
I was in a unique position to tell their stories, and instead I was silencing them.
Not that there was anywhere to turn.
Not when writing aboutbreast canceris part of your job.
My coworker told me she had just finished a story about an emerging approach to breast reconstruction.
I opened the file and changed it back.
That week, a movie crew was filming down the block from my apartment.
(Seriously, who would know?)
My expertise helped and haunted me.
I knew too much, and not enough.
As though I hadnt researched tumor staging and typing.
Like I didnt know all about mastectomy and metastasesand chemo and recurrence.
I digested them differently now.
I started distrusting myself and what I held to be true.
What if I did this?
I thought about reviving it, then worried Id lost my credibility.
Who wants to take health advice from someone who got cancer?
Like me, Angelina Jolie carries the BRCA1 mutation that increases the likelihood of ovarian cancer.
Also: Im sorry, but fuck Julia Louis Dreyfus, too.
Wecovered the news, of course, and I felt like she really stole my thunder.
On my own diagnosis!
[Ed note: We literallypublished another article about her today, as I was working on this one.
Right after Labor Day I celebrated my canceversary, a year since being diagnosed.
Then I went to work.
Right on schedule, the Breast Cancer Awareness Month emails came pouring in.
One by one, I filed them into a separate folder.
Maybe next year Ill open them.
For now, Im still working on my own story.
