There's No Easy Way to Tell the World I Have Breast Cancer (So Here Goes it)

Earlier tonight I was trying to help my 10-year-old with his homework. It didn't go so well. My body aches horribly, my brain is fuzzy, and when he moved his piece paper, I felt like I was going to vomit. In the next room, the news was on with updates about the situation in Ferguson, Mo. and the protest marches happening elsewhere across the nation due to the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

It feels surreal, to be doing homework with my son, knowing that another black mother a few thousands of miles away got her own son on the path to college, only for her boy to be gunned down and his body left out on the street for four hours. But what also makes this tough is the reason why my body aches and I feel sick.

On Tuesday I went through my first round of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy, as in the drugs that you have to take to kill whatever cancer has attacked your body.

In mid-July I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. It feels odd to write that, but it's the real deal. What does this mean? Here's the scientific breakdown from the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation:

"These subtypes of breast cancer are generally diagnosed based upon the presence, or lack of, three "receptors" known to fuel most breast cancers: estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). The most successful treatments for breast cancer target these receptors."

You with me so far? Yeah, if you're not, I don't blame you. I wasn't exactly sure what the heck the doctors were saying to me at first, either. Here's some more medical talk for you. Maybe it will help:

"Unfortunately, none of these receptors are found in women with triple negative breast cancer. In other words, a triple negative breast cancer diagnosis means that the offending tumor is estrogen receptor-negative, progesterone receptor-negative and HER2-negative, thus giving rise to the name 'triple negative breast cancer.'"

When the doctors first told me I was seriously confused. I thought being triple negative was them saying they'd gotten my initial diagnosis wrong. All my mind could jump to was STD tests--you know how folks are THRILLED to be told they are negative for HIV or negative for herpes. So I figured this triple negative diagnosis must be something good.

"On a positive note, this type of breast cancer is typically responsive to chemotherapy. Because of its triple negative status, however, triple negative tumors generally do not respond to receptor targeted treatments. Depending on the stage of its diagnosis, triple negative breast cancer can be particularly aggressive, and more likely to recur than other subtypes of breast cancer."

Awesome news: Responds well to chemotherapy. Not awesome news: Can be super aggressive and come back.

I've been pretty healthy all my life. I've run multiple marathons. I've been a vegetarian since 1991, and I don't smoke or drink. I breast-fed both my sons. I don't even use chemical hair color. My vices? Insomnia and Coke Zero. My oncologist told me that occasionally drinking the latter won't give you cancer. "But it will give you a stroke," she clarified. Good to know.

In one recent unfortunate conversation I was encouraged to figure out what I'm doing wrong in my life--what did I do to make myself get cancer?

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Cancer isn't like catching a cold or flu. Cancer cells are genetic mutations. Someone who eats crap and doesn't exercise may never get it. Meanwhile, someone else who takes pretty good care of herself will get it. My doctor told me the average age of diagnosis is 61-years-old. But my mom doesn't have cancer. I do.

And although it's not fully understood why, this particular cancer, triple negative, tends to disproportionately affect young black women. In the U.S. alone a full 30 percent of breast cancers that black women get are triple negative.

That was a shock to me. I'd never even heard of triple negative breast cancer before. And that's one of the reasons I've decided to tell folks about my diagnosis. If it encourages anyone else there to get themselves checked out, being so public with my diagnosis will be all worth it.

Seriously, you can be 25-years-old and get it. That means if you're a black woman and you wait till you turn 40 to get a mammogram, it could be too late for you. Please get yourself checked because the age recommendations for mammograms are from medical studies of white women, not women of color.

And how many sistas out there are doing their regular self exams? If you're not, learn how and get to feeling up your boobs. That's how I found my lump.

The past three weeks have been a bit of a blur. I went on vacation up the coast with my family--I wanted to have one last bit of fun before our world descended into cancer/chemotherapy madness. It was a good decision. Tonight I was looking back at those pictures, remembering how I felt like myself.

I can't describe how chemotherapy feels. I just feel weird. My body aches. Even my teeth hurt. But I went to work the past two days. It's been tough but I didn't want to be home alone. If I keeled over and died, at least there would be someone around to notice. Besides, I wanted some sense of normalcy, some indication that my life is not about to fall apart.

Perhaps the biggest lesson for me has been being willing to ask other folks for help and accept help that's offered. My friends, both here in Los Angeles and elsewhere, have been seriously generous to me.

I can't clean my house. The smell of any household chemicals makes me nauseous. This is terrible for me because I can't stand mess all around. So when my friends say they want to come wash my dishes or clean my bathroom, I am not going to say no. My poor husband is in the kitchen washing dishes right now. My 13-year-old cleaned the bathroom earlier tonight. They're troopers.

Before my first chemo treatment on Tuesday, I liked eating. Now, I have never had less of a desire to even smell food. But I have to eat to keep my energy up. So when the sweet folks I work with offer to get me soup from Whole Foods for lunch, I say yes.

I can't drive. The chemo drugs (and all the other stuff I have to take to manage the side effects) make me feel very slow and dizzy. Trust me, you don't want me behind the wheel on the streets of Los Angeles. So for now I'm taking the bus and when my friends offer to drive me somewhere, I graciously accept.

Then there have been those friends who have sent me care packages, sweet notes of encouragement, and have even loaned me a juicer. They also set up a fundraiser for me because having cancer isn't cheap. Every time I pull into one of those $18 parking spots at UCLA's cancer center, I think about all the low income families in Los Angeles, like the parents of my former students when I taught in Compton, who can't afford that.

How often does the cost of treatment keep women from taking care of ourselves? If a woman works an hourly job or lives on a fixed income, real talk, it's pretty impossible for her to take the time to drive out to UCLA, the best hospital on the West Coast (which is why I go there) for treatment.

I've also come to terms with the reality that thanks to the chemotherapy drugs, all my hair will fall out in a couple of weeks. This morning I got on the bus and the driver was all, "OMG your hair is sooo awesome!" I almost blurted out that it won't be around much longer. At least if I'm bald, I won't have to have an imaginary Do Not Pet My Afro sign across my forehead. (Silver lining.)

It's all a small price to pay for getting healthy. So I'll rock my Depeche Mode t-shirts to those appointments and keep a smile on my face. All so that I can sit next to my son and fuss over his homework this time next year. After all, that's something Michael Brown's mother won't ever get to do again.