Introduction

Welcome to my new blog! For anyone who might not know, I'm Tammy, I'm 29 years old, and I have metastatic breast cancer. ("Hi, Tammy...") It isn't anything I would have chosen for myself, but it's not as shocking as it might sound. This blog will chronicle my life as a breast cancer patient -- good stuff and bad stuff -- from doctor's appointments and scans, to my new healthier lifestyle habits, to developments and news and everything in between.

(At least, that's my intent. I'm not always as faithful at updating/maintaining blogs as I'd like to be!)

I've been posting off-and-on about my cancer experience over at MySpace since I was originally diagnosed (with Stage IIB cancer) in November of 2006. I'll continue to cross-post there; however, now that I'm a Stage IV, I wanted to have a place where I could post things that I might otherwise consider too short or too "boring" (or whatever) for my subscribers at that site. Plus, not everyone is on MySpace. (I don't even log in there all that much anymore.)

I hope this blog will be reasonably entertaining, and I hope to convey the "attitude" that I try to approach this disease with, which is a healthy balance of optimism and realism. I'm usually pretty successful at this (thanks in huge part to a wonderful support system of family, friends, doctors and "survivor sisters", not to mention my awesome fiancee). I won't necessarily always be Suzy Sunshine, but I strongly believe that there is ALWAYS hope, which truly does keep me going. As does taking things one day/step at a time...

Finally, I hope that anyone who reads this blog doesn't mind my overuse of quotation marks (and parentheses). And exclamation points!

Now as for the title of the blog -- unless you're a family member, you might be wondering about that. In short, when I went in for my first biopsy, back in November of '06, my sister Angie and my nephew Cooper (who was 2 and 1/2 at the time) happened to be along with me. That day, I had to take off my shirt and put on one of those hospital gowns(for the first of many, MANY times).

When I was putting my shirt back on, Cooper -- who'd been pretty quiet up until that point -- suddenly shouted, out-of-the- blue, "AUNTIE TAMMY'S NAKED!" It certainly lightened the mood of the afternoon; Angie and I cracked up. And to this day, certain family members will still tell Cooper to say the same line, and he'll delightfully oblige (which I have to admit, usually makes me and everyone else in the room chuckle).

While my nakedness is probably not a mental image that most of my readers want (heh), I can't think of a more appropriate title for this blog. I've lost count of how many times I've had to sit around in some medical office in a state of half-dress. Usually I'm wearing one of those gowns, but occasionally not even the gown, if the doctor needs to check my boobies!

Actually, during my first bout with cancer, if I had to expose a body part, most of the time it was my boobs; however, now that I have spots on my lower spine and pelvis, it's the other half of me that they "get" to see! I'm currently being treated with radiation, which is a breeze for the most part. But my least favorite part is definitely when I have to yank down my pants to below my "rear end" every day (so that my tattoos are visible). Granted, I'm covered up for the most part, but it's a little ... awkward. Especially the part at the end when the male technician always comes in and says, "You can pull up your pants."

(Shouldn't "you're all done for the day" be sufficient?)

Despite everything I just said, weirdly enough, you get used to all the undressing. BC doesn't leave a lot of room for modesty.

Anyhow, I'll post more later today or tomorrow. This past week was a good week for good news; I have a lot of things to share! I'm also working on my "blogroll" list and will get that up soon.

Until next time ...