My initial reaction to it all was just shock.  I couldn’t believe that it was happening to me. I found out after my annual mammogram that something was amiss. Then after a biopsy, I got the call that I had early-stage breast cancer. 

The most difficult part is knowing that you have breast cancer and out of nowhere. The other thing is telling my family, I lost my mom to cancer, not breast cancer. It’s just such a scary thought, just so scary, but once there was a plan, then it just made everything so much easier just to walk through the plan. 

My options were radiotherapy six to eight weeks after I had healed from this surgery or to have IORT and that just seemed to me to make the most sense because I was being treated right away at the time of surgery, which seemed earth-shattering in a way that I could have IORT inside me right away. 

There was no pain. There was nothing afterwards and it lessened my treatment, having to go every day for six to eight weeks.

Carol