Pamela McNeil

I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer 3 1/2 years ago. I also had the dilema of waiting for my hair to fall out, or shave it off. I choose to shave it off the morning I went to wash my hair and I had hand fulls of hair. I was devistated! I called my hair stylist at home, she came right over to my home and shaved off the remainder of my hair. I cried for many hours, I couldn't even look in the mirror. After a while I decided it was only hair and it would grow back. The hardest thing for me was my daughter was getting married in two months and I would be bald. I wore my wig for her wedding and we got a good laugh because it kept slipping around, in some photos I had short bangs, another I had normal bangs. Laughter is the best medicine in a bad situation, remember to laugh reguardless how crappy you are feeling, My family, friends and especially grandchildren were such great supporters. One day while I was resting, my 3 yr old granddaughter at that time was lying down with me. I opened my eyes and she was staring at me. I asked her why she was staring at me and she said " gramma I am lying here just watching your hair grow", and she said " you know you are beautiful with or without hair". It isn't an easy process to go through, but you have to stay positive, which is hard at times, laugh alot, and except help from friends and family when it is offered to you. My whole life has changed, I see things very differently now. You get one shot at life so live it. There are no second chances. I found my cancer myself, I had a crease on my breast and was going to wait but something told me to go to the doctor. I had a mammogram in August, I found the crease in February. I waited for a month and a half before I did anything because I didn't think it was anything. The dr. told me if I had waited any longer I would have had a very bad prognosis. Triple negative is the most aggressive type of breast cancer, but I had a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. I did 16 weeks of chemo. and here today to tell my story. Stay strong and keep up the fight.