9 years ago today, I was told I had cancer.

My first reaction was pretty typical for me. The doctors that delivered the news appeared devastated. Their faces told me they’d lost sleep thinking about telling the 43 year old mom of two, that she had breast cancer. So – I cracked a few jokes (I called my tumour “my little friend”. WTF?) and assured them I was fine. I actually felt good about myself, thinking I had alleviated some of their concern. No tears were shed.

I remember every minute of the drive home. I rehearsed what I would say to my husband, and how I would tell my parents (somehow worse).

I then decided how I would protect my children (11 and 2), and what kind of cancer patient I would be.

The decisions I made in those psychotic moments, framed the months and years that would follow.

Control being paramount (my friends should at least try to hide their laughter here), I kept the diagnosis to a tight circle of friends and family. I sent a few emails – with instruction that nothing should change, no pity was to be given, and under no circumstance was anyone to give me the sad-faced “how are you?” Cancer was never to have a place in our conversations. Like me, everyone needed to buck up and deal with it.

I’d like to say I was brave – but I wasn’t. Nothing about me, or what happened to me was special. Just another person with a shitty diagnosis.

The reality is that we all do what we need to in times of crisis. In retrospect – while I’m proud of how I handled my kiddos, the rest may not have been my best work. Pretending to be fine, let everyone around me believe I WAS fine. That meant no onslaught of casseroles (what the heck was I thinking? I love casseroles!), and no compassion when the steroids made me an angry (and hungry) bear.

Why share this now? I guess enough time has passed that the monkey on my back (cancer patients are familiar with the stupid monkey) scares me a little less. My ethnic “don’t jinx it” has lightened up, and most importantly, I genuinely want to be a reminder that you DO NOT know what people are going through. So many moments of unkindness left me thinking “boy, if you only knew”.

Note: If you were an asshole to me during the period of 2011 to 2014 – I hope you feel like a jerk right now, ‘cause you are. (I had an ‘lol’ here, but I deleted it)

Most of the people I encountered had no clue I was in the middle of chemo. They also didn’t know I woke up every morning vomiting from stress and worry.

I have so much to say about what I learned in those years. But for now – on a day that carries so much weight for me – I just want to ask you to cool your jets and take a beat before judging others. Socrates was right when he said “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”.

Finally, I want to use this day, February 18th to thank my hubby for carrying the full burden of what was going on, my childhood BFF Sue for being my medical caregiver, the friends who ignored my requests and brought food anyway, and, the one that called me every few days to “check in” – instead of saying “how are you?”.

I am enormously grateful for all of you.

Now, please can y’all stop being assholes? Just lead with kindness– you really never know what burden someone may be carrying.

P.S. that’s me with the wig I hated so much. Good times.