Nancy Jill's Cancer Alphabet: A

Today is brought to you by the letter A. A is for APPEARANCE. “You don’t look sick,” is a refrain that women with MBC hear all the time. We have hair, we might even have natural breasts because we didn’t chose mastectomy (the stats for lumpectomy plus radiation are comparable to mastectomy). But even women like me, who have been told they are in remission have the constant side-effects of continuous oral medication, the after-effects of chemo, and the worry that every new pain is a new tumor. I keep up appearances. I keep up lots of things - work, home, relationships. But the worry never stops.