… with denial. I felt something. Could it be what I was feeling was just a muscle strain. Surely if I waited a couple of days it would go away.

Breast cancer was never something I thought that I would ever have to deal with. I know of no relatives with breast cancer – well, that is not completely true – my cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer at about my age, and she passed away about a year and a half later. But, she had breast cancer on the side of the family that I was not related to by blood, there were additional circumstances that led to her diagnosis – it did not apply to me – I was still safe.

One reality is that the major of women who get breast cancer do not have relatives with cancer. I am now part of that statistic – or at least, my part in that statistic will be positively confirmed by Wednesday. I wonder, how it possible that majority of women who get breast cancer do not have relatives with cancer? If one in eight women get breast cancer, then I cannot see how those numbers add up. I am definitely going to have to do some more research into this.

So, my approach to this new challenge in life is to look at it as an academic. Why not? It gives me a perspective and a way to focus. I shall look at this blog as a journal into lived experience. Combining the medical jargon with the lived-experience of someone with breast cancer. I shall be negotiating how this new identity of mine changes who I am as a open academic.

So, today my goal in life changes. Today, I can now say that I want to be identified as a breast cancer survivor, as the alternative doesn’t look so grand!