When I was diagnosed with cancer at 41, I was a stay-at-home mother with a husband and three young children between 1 and 8 years. We were preparing for a move to a new house in another state and were about to put our house on the market - literally that week! We put the sale on hold while I went through testing before having surgery a month later. I had a single mastectomy and reconstructive surgery right before the Christmas holidays, and then we moved out of our house in the middle of winter because our new house was ready. It was rough and the most stressful time of my life. To top it off, my husband has a job with no paid leave, and we had almost no help from family. My mother has Alzheimer's, my husband's mother is also elderly and was sick at the time, and no one else within driving distance wanted to help. They were too busy with their own lives. One relative in another state came to help briefly. Fortunately, I recovered quickly from the surgery, and together we somehow found the physical and mental strength needed to deal with everything, including the kids! After getting settled from the move, I went through a short round of chemotherapy and then on Tamoxifen to try to prevent a recurrence. Testing showed that I am almost in the high risk category for a recurrence. So far, I am fine, but was recently diagnosed with ovarian cysts, which were most probably caused by the Tamoxifen. The cysts were causing me some abdominal pain.
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