How can it be

How can it be so beautiful on a day like today? It's early November and its unseasonably warm outside. It's perfect weather, except almost everything is wrong.

I think I'm finally ready to talk about the week. Probably not ready but this always helps. Getting out the words on paper makes it feel more real. I guess it is time to face the music. On Thursday, while I was sitting at work, the doctor in training called me to tell me the results of my biopsy. There is no way to say this. I have cancer. Real cancer that can move and spread in my body. My body betrayed me. I have three spots in my bicep that are completely surrounded by the desmoid but are cancerous. There is good news: the cancer hasn't spread to any other part in my body. It's stuck in my arm, right now.

Let's talk about the incredibly shitty part of all of this. My desmoid tumor only shows up in 2-3 tumors in a million each year. It's rare. The cancer INSIDE my other tumor is a complete mystery. It probably showed up due to radiation. Most people who get secondary cancers from radiation have them show up 10 years after... not three, like me. Of people who get radiation, only about 2% of people actually get cancer from it. The kicker? My secondary tumor is even more rare than the desmoid. We are talking less than 1 in a million. There have only been two cases EVER where someone with a desmoid got a secondary cancer. Take a second to take all of that in. This shouldn't have happened. 

I stayed as positive as possible. At least it's just in one small section in my arm. That means it's likely to be easy to treat. Oh wrong. If it spreads it will get into my lungs. It's not slow growing but fast growing (high grade tumor). It has to be taken care of immediately. Secondary tumors are resistant to chemo and just stubborn little guys. Since it arose from my radiation, the other desmoid has a high probability of turning into the same type of cancer too. So the worst part of this while thing is that I'm going to loose my arm. My functioning arm that has this terrible disease in it. It has to go. It's bitter sweet.  On one side, they will remove anything that even is closely tumor related. All the bad tissue will go away. It means I get another shot at this. It means I can live a long life and have children one day. It also means I'm going to be an amputee. I see the word typed out and I get sick to my stomach. This is so unfair. I just don't know how this all happened.