My Cancer Journey

mybreastlife Angela Medley October 28, 2026

Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge (Psalm 62:8)

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand.
Isaiah 41:10

The Backstory

On 1/1/26, I had a bout of shingles on the left side of my face just above my nose. All the doctors would ask me about stress – divorce, death – and I would laugh and say I really don't have any stress outside of stuff for work, which is a normal level. What I learned later is shingles can be a sign of cancer bc it's the body's immune system working to fight it. On 1/13/26, I went to my OB/GYN regarding some female things and she checked everything there to not find any real issues. On 1/28/26, I had a breast reduction surgery. The doc commented that my breast tissue was so dense it was tough to do the surgery. She took 1.5 hours longer than expected. They sent off a sample of my breast tissue for biopsy (standard procedure) and everything was fine.  In Sept '26, I scheduled my new mammogram post-surgery. My last mammogram was 1/25 (normal) and I couldn't get one scheduled before my surgery at the year mark because it wasn't quite a year. In hindsight, I should have paid out of pocket for it, but at that time I didn't know about self-pay and always thought tests would be $$$.

In July, I started with a functional med doctor who started doing comprehensive labs. My D & B12 was low and my homocysteine was high. My hs-CRP was high – 3.48 in July & 3.53 in Oct. It should be <1.00. I didn't understand why my inflammation would be high. It's not generally a marker for cancer, but it is still odd. So my mammogram was followed by a 2nd mammogram in 10/26, which showed calcifications in my breast following my scar line. They said this was normal after breast reduction surgery. Then they did a stereotactic biopsy to look at 2 of the 3 places they were most concerned about.

Both came back as cancer. One is DCIS, which really means it's pre-cancer cells inside of a milk duct. The other area had gone through the milk duct wall into the breast tissue. So now I have breast cancer, words I never thought I would hear in my life. I have no history in my family and I never get sick. I always (mostly) eat well and exercise, but I guess you just never know.

A side note, Brian and I had talked to our pastor, Derek Porter, about starting a marriage ministry at Roswell United Methodist Church. We were both working on an email to Derek to lay out the plan when I received the news.

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