healthy as a horse: what i learned while fighting breast cancer (guest post)

One of my goals with this site is to get people talking about things that are historically "hush-hush" (infertility, miscarriages, cancer, etc.) in the hopes we can shatter the stigma and openly support each other (both women and men). This is the next in a series of guest posts. - Kara

Healthy as a Horse
by Melissa Gollnick

How to do a breast self-exam.
Photo: Mayo Clinic.

Labor Day weekend – September 4, 2011 – the day that my life changed forever. I found a lump in my breast and I just knew with absolute certainty that it was cancer. Breast cancer does not run in my family, but I still knew it.

Less than a week later, it was official…this 34-year-old had cancer.

Since then, I’ve had a sentinel lymph node biopsy and a port put in my chest. I’ve had blood work, x-rays, bone scans, MRIs, and heart scans.  In addition to the breast surgeon, I have seen two plastic surgeons, an oncologist, and a radiation oncologist. Based on the test results, the doctors have told me that I’m healthy as a horse.

I could barely stop myself from snorting in disgust. How can you be healthy if you have cancer?

susan g. komen pulls planned parenthood funding: a cancer survivor's take

Source: someecards.

When I was in my early 20s and working in LA, I made a pittance working in the Hollywood machine. So little, in fact, that I couldn't afford the co-pay for birth control. Luckily, there was a Planned Parenthood out on the Valley, and I was able to get my pills from them.

Sure, many people hear "Planned Parenthood" and immediately think "abortion." But they're so much more than that. Yesterday, it was announced that Susan G. Komen Foundation, famous for The 3 Day Walk and the pinkification of everything from socks to sundries, is pulling its financing of Planned Parenthood. More specifically, it yanked its funding of the low-cost mammograms that Planned Parenthood provides. According to the New York Times, Planned Parentood "provided around 770,000 women with breast examinations and paid for mammograms and ultrasounds for those who needed and could not afford further diagnostic services."