If someone in your family gets cancer you’d think someone would mention it. Not my family though. Nope, sure didn’t know and probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t mentioned to my mom today that I was planning to visit my grandma for Thanksgiving.

Me: “Yeah, I think this year I’m going to go out to Arizona for Thanksgiving and visit grandma.”

Mom: “Oh. Well, that’s good. She just finished her chemo so she should be doing alright by then.”

Me: “What?!?! Chemo?!?! What are you talking about?”

Mom: “Yeah, grandma has breast cancer. She had to have a mastectomy a few months ago and she’s been doing chemo all summer.”

Who doesn’t tell you when your grandma has a potentially life threatening disease AND gets surgery for it?!?! I’m super sad right now, especially because now when I call to tell her I’m coming to visit I know she’ll think it’s a pity visit when it’s SO not. Well, maybe she won’t think that because she and I have always been close and I’ve been saying I was coming out for awhile. But still!

I am DEF going to Arizona for Thanksgiving now. No matter what! My grandma is one of my most favorite people in the world and I’ll be devastated if something happens to her.

This isn’t the best picture, but it’s the only picture I have of her on my computer (the rest are on film and are at my home in CA).

I still can’t believe no one has mentioned it to me before today.

Worse still, apparently it runs in my family. My grandmother’s mother also had breast cancer and here I’ve been telling my doctors for years that I have no family history of anything. My dad’s father died of cancer a few years ago (this is my dad’s mother) I wonder how my dad is doing.

I guess I better start paying more attention to the recomended self-checks. This sucks all around.

Click for info on breast cancer