Michele Hummel

Survivor

Things happen…which seems to be what this year has been all about. Things Happen For Reasons. In the shower in May 2008, I noticed a dimple in my left breast; I felt for lumps for weeks and could not feel one. I kept looking at this dimple and decided to go on line and found it was something I needed to have checked.

I made the appt and still thought it was probably just nothing, while in the waiting area after the first picture, my husband and I were texting on the phone – he was at work, making jokes about the procedure. Then the nurse came back in and said, we want to take another look of one particular area. I went back into the waiting area. Then the nurse came back in and told me they needed to do a sonogram and took me into the room for this. It was then they told me the likelihood of it be cancerous was very great.

Like a child, the first place I went was to my moms. How silly is that. It was amazing how fast everything went, from the biopsy, to the breast surgeon, to the oncologists, thru the surgery. The Race was off! I had been training with our 13 yr old son for “our” first 10K that was to be 2 weeks after I was diagnosed. I had run this 10K a year early and took 1st in my age group (40-44).

The summer was a blur – I canned tomatoes and made strawberry jam – the jam didn’t take! I don’t even remember doing it. I wanted to do everything that made me feel normal. While everything going on wasn’t – from the radiation to the chemotherapy. I had long hair; my husband cut it short for me, to my shoulders.

After my 2nd treatment most of my hair was gone, so we decided to shave it – my 22 yr old daughter shaved it in tears as I sat there with my husband holding my hand, crying. Every day he would tell me I was his beautiful wife. The hair came back, curly and black! My husband says I don’t know how to quit. I was determined to get back into the gym.