In June of 2021, just weeks before my 40th birthday I got one of the worst calls of my life. As my phone rang the words breast center was staring me in the face. My husband had been battling his cancer and I just happened to lie down on the couch one day after visiting him in the hospital and notice a jolt of pain in my left breast. Right then and there for the very first time in my life I gave myself I breast exam. I began to feel around where I felt that pain and sure enough I believed I felt a lump that wasn’t normal. I thought maybe I was just being paranoid. Especially after everything I was witnessing my husband go through. I had never had a mammogram before. As I was told they weren’t really needed until after the age of 40. I was 39. After feeling the lump and telling my mom. We decided I should get a mammogram. I scheduled an appointment with my primary care and she indeed felt the same lump I felt. So the referral was made for an ultrasound and mammogram. I didn’t hesitate to schedule it. Within the next week, I was in getting an ultrasound done on both breast. Then those results came back for a definite mammogram. They squished and squeezed my boobs in that terribly painful machine and afterwards I waited patiently for the call of results to come. I was almost certain it was probably just benign and I was just being paranoid. But as I answered the call and began to listen to what she had to say, It felt my heart sank to the pit of my stomach and the tears began to pour out of my eyes like a waterfall that couldn’t stop flowing. She said, “I’m so sorry to have to give you these results over the phone, but your test results show that you do have triple negative invasive ductal carcinoma in your right breast measuring at about 2.8 centimeters. There are also some tumors in your left breast but they appear to be benign.” At that moment in time I felt so lost, so defeated. I thought it was my death sentence. So many thoughts started racing in my head. I already knew my husband’s cancer was incurable and that he was dying, my girls and I were inevitably going to lose him. My girls could not loose me too. How was I going to break the news to them or my mom? Let alone everyone else. I was a mess. But the one thing I knew is that I was going to fight. And I did. Today I can say I am still here.