Page 17 - October 24 LuxeFactor

It was a year like any other, or so I thought. For two years, COVID kept me from getting my routine mammogram. But as soon as I could in 2022, I went for it. Nothing could have prepared me for the news that would shatter my world. A breast cancer diagnosis. Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC) to be exact. That dreaded phone call on October 13th, 2022, turned my life upside down. I felt like the floor had been ripped from beneath me. How do you even process something like this? Cancer was a foreign word, and suddenly, it was my reality. My journey with IDC began that day. And so did my fight.
I knew nothing about the types of cancer, their stages, or something called an "oncoscore." I was drowning in a sea of medical jargon I never asked to know. But as frightening as it all was, I clung to one fact: if I had to face this, at least I had a type that was highly treatable, with a good chance of never returning. The road ahead looked terrifying, but there was hope. And hope is what I needed to hold onto.