I bought this mug a couple years ago at a spa that had a boutique full of gift items. I saw it and knew a friend who would love it, so I bought one for her, and I loved it, so I bought one for myself. One for you, one for me.

Another friend, Melanie, had given me a gift certificate to the spa for Christmas and said she wanted to go with me when I decided to use it. We had facials and massages, then went to lunch.

It was a perfect day. But, this was shortly after I had found the lump in my breast and that’s what I remember most about the day. Telling her about the lump when we were driving from the spa to lunch. I had only told one other person about it. We talked about how it could be anything and was most likely nothing. But today is the two-year anniversary of being told that I had breast cancer.

Who knew I was, quite literally, about to have more issues than Vogue.

The me two years ago could never imagine the me I am today. We knew I had breast cancer, we knew I had Invasive Ductal Carcinoma {the most common kind, which gave me huge relief}, but we didn’t know what type of Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. At the time, I didn’t know there were different kinds within this bubble. They had to do more testing because the final test came back inconclusive, and they need to know the type to determine the treatment.

Turns out, I had Triple Negative Breast Cancer. It accounts for 20% of breast cancers, is the most aggressive and hardest type to treat, and it’s the least researched of all breast cancers. Yay me! Which brings me to part two of this story and where I am now.

A few weeks ago, my sister and I were flying to Orange County, California for a trip to Disneyland. I sat at the window, my sister was in the middle and there was a woman in the aisle seat. About half way through the flight my sister and the woman started talking. She was very sweet and was originally from California but moved to Colorado 20 years ago.

She was going to see her sister and they were doing a day at Disneyland as well. We already had something in common with her. She seemed like the kind of person you would want to be friends with because she seemed like she was a very good friend and a lot of fun. As the plane landed, we talked about traveling and visiting family.

She also had a daughter who lived in California and she was going to be traveling back and forth quite a bit. Her daughter had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and was beginning chemo treatment in a few weeks. Her daughter was young, in her 30s, so I asked what kind of breast cancer she had since Triple Negative affects young women the hardest, I was curious. She wasn’t sure.

I’m learning most people aren’t, even those who have been diagnosed. There’s too much information coming at you in those early weeks and it’s hard to keep it all straight. It’s also very confusing.

I told her about my similar treatment and saw clear relief on her face. I imagine seeing that someone could go through what her daughter was about to go through and a year and a half later be healthy, felt reassuring to her. If there’s anything positive to come out of this crazy and surreal experience, it’s this.

Giving hope to someone else because I know the questions and the thoughts that are going through their mind.

The experience is so surreal, I sometimes forget it even happened and look back on it and think WTH – did that really happen to me? Here we are two years later about to celebrate Independence Day.

The 4^th of July has always symbolized many things in our family. It’s my younger sister’s birthday. She’s a daughter born to immigrant parents who carried green cards at the time. My dad loved the 4^th of July and my sister grew up thinking all the fireworks were for her. Today, it means we’re both alive {if you missed that part of the story, you can read Plutonium Girls for the details.}

So, Happy Independence Day! And Yay Me! And F**k Cancer! May we all work together to gain independence from this dreadful disease.