DENISES' DIARY 'A Positive Journey through Breast Cancer' - Denise Bassett

The doctor called me into her office after I had taken the mammogram and said that the tumour was cancerous, and just to be sure they would extract some of it's cells through a long fine needle. It was called 'fine needle aspiration'. The procedure was painful, as the type of tumour I had was painful, and the results were even more so. The tumour was malignant.

July the 9th. It had been twenty-six years that I'd been married to Michael. This was our anniversary day, but I from now on would have to share it with the unhappy memory of the cancer diagnosis. The bitter and the sweet, hand in hand.

The weeks to follow were negotiated through a fog. I shuffled through my day's taking zombie steps forward. My mind was glazed, my heart broken, and my face and eyes swollen with the weeks of tears that I cried.

I was never really afraid that I would die; I think that I was afraid of the legendary procedures to follow. I was always terrified of hospitals, and particularly felt week at the knees and faint at the sight of patients with their bandages and paraphernalia like drips, blood, and bags of whatever >> more