In the summer of 2013, my mom and I had traveled to a camp in Indiana to play worship music for a Christian camp. The camp was located in a small forest, surrounded by corn fields and lots of wildlife. The first day we had been at the camp my mom pulled me aside and told me that within a 24 hour window, between the times that she had showered, a lump the size of a marble, had come to the surface on her right breast.

Growing up, I have always been close with my family. My mom is my best friend, and we were always together. Because of this, I have always had exposure to medical needs because my mom has been an insulin-dependent diabetic for over 40 years, and we lived across the street from my grandparents, who also dealt with several medical issues, including Alzheimer’s later on. I watched my mom prick her finger and give herself shots every day of my life, and I always accompanied my mom and my grandparents to their doctors appointments. Being in a hospital waiting room was normal for me, and I always had a bag with a book, a portable CD player, and a sketchbook with me to keep me busy during their appointments. When I was around 9 years old, I remember going outside to load my swim bag in the car before going to swim team practice and coming back inside my house to find my mom laying unconscious on the floor, due to low blood sugars. Most children my age may have freaked out or thought that my mom was dead, but I knew what to do. I remained calm while I made sure she was breathing, checked her sugars, and called my dad at work. I was used to medical needs and emergency situations, and nothing really scared me, yet.

As my mom took me inside the rickety, wooden camp bathroom, she told me that the lump could be a bug bite and that she could be having an allergic reaction, but she had a strong “Holy Spirit vibe” that this was more serious. The next day, my mom stood in the small area in the parking lot where the only bar of cell service was to call and make a doctor’s appointment for the day we got back from our trip.

Initially, my mom was worked in with someone who was not her typical doctor, and she had a mammogram done, which came back clear. The nurse practitioner told my mom that everything was fine, and there was no cancer. My mom had a strong urge that something still was not right, so mom kept asking the nurse how she could know for sure that nothing was wrong. The nurse went rounds trying to convince my mom that due to the imaging and the reports, there was no indication that my mom had cancer. When the nurse practitioner realized that my mom would not give up, the nurse went to speak with my mom’s doctor, who order mom to have an MRI done.

Soon after the MRI, the results showed that there was a mass and a few other tumors underneath the surfaced-lump in my mom’s breast. The doctor looked at my parents and asked if it was ok to speak freely with me in the room, before she told us that she thought my mom had cancer. The doctor performed an ultrasound and a biopsy, which confirmed that my mom did have cancer, and because of the size of one of the masses, the doctor told us that she thought my mom was already in Stage 3.

If a lump had not come to the surface where my mom could visibly see that something was wrong, she never would have known about the masses underneath. If my mom had not pushed to do more tests to know for sure, she never would have known that she was already in Stage 3. My mom did not do regular mammograms or regular self exams, but if she had, she could have caught the cancer in a much earlier stage and saved her quality of life. My mom went through two different types of chemo for months, 35 consecutive daily radiation treatments, and multiple surgeries, and she will forever be a part of the Immunocompromised Community because of the permanent damage done to her body from these treatments. My mom has been on medication for the last six years and will continue to take them for the rest of her life. These medications have harsh side affects. Every day is a struggle.

Most people in the medical field will recommend doing self exams once a month, but after watching my mom struggle every day for the last seven years, I would have done anything to change my moms current reality. Breast Cancer is one of the few types of cancers that you can catch yourself by doing a self exam, so I started the #PinkPantsFriday movement to remind people to do a self-exam once a week on Friday to take that extra preventative step that I wish my mom had taken. Doing a self exam can take less than ten minutes out of your day, but it can make a world of difference.

Check out the #PinkPantsFriday Social Media pages for your weekly reminders to do your self exams and check back on the website for more blogs from the Cancer Diaries series in the near future!