About two years ago (April 25th, 2024), I had my first mammogram. The doctor at the time told me the results showed "an area of concern" and asked me to come in for a follow up. I asked my husband to go with me, to which he replied, "What's with you? It's not like you to be one of these needy wives." I told him not to come with me after all. The ultrasound and imaging I had following that mammogram came back with a normal report. "No cause for concern." I breathed a sigh of relief about my health. But I also knew in a way I couldn't ignore anymore that my marriage was failing, slowly, in that death-by-a-thousand-cuts kind of way.

A year ago today, on April 23rd, 2025, (or technically a year ago yesterday, as I lie here unable to sleep well past midnight)--I asked my husband to move out and separate. I had known it was coming, probably for several years, if I'm being honest. One month later, on May 27th, I had a breast reduction. I had just finished my yoga teacher training, gone on a retreat to Costa Rica, learned to surf, was in the best shape of my life, and as I began to heal from my surgery, I was headache-free, neck-pain free, shoulder-pain free, free from the weight of ten pounds of G-cup breasts and free from the weight of a marriage that felt like it had been slowly killing me--I felt amazing. I felt free. I felt strong. I felt unstoppable, like I could do anything. I felt hopeful and excited about the future, despite knowing I had just blown up my life and had no clue what would happen next.

And as it turns out, what happened next was the LAST thing I expected.

I went to my two month follow up with my breast surgeon, and she told me that the routine biopsies they had done showed something called Atypical Ductal Hyperplasia. This, she assured me, was not cancer. This was a type of pre-cancer "marker." She told me all it meant is that I should establish care with a good oncologist, one she would refer me to, so that they could get some MRI scans and additional imaging to have so that in the years going forward, they would have clear scans to which they could compare future scans to keep an eye on things. All that this meant is that I was at a slightly higher risk than average for developing breast cancer, and so instead of just doing regular mammograms, I would need to do annual MRI scans, as well--the "golden standard of imaging for breast cancer," she told me. Nothing to worry about--just added precaution. I had no family history of breast cancer of any kind. I was not worried.

I met with my new oncologist and scheduled my routine MRI scans and mammogram in October. I also told my husband, officially, that I wanted a divorce, after six months of a grueling separation. The following day, Friday, Halloween, I had the MRI and mammogram. I filed for divorce on November 4th, the following Tuesday. A few short hours after submitting the filing, I received a call from my oncologist that there were "two rapidly growing new masses" in my right breast. She told me that it was probably nothing, that they were 95% sure it was scar tissue from the reduction and the hematoma that had formed two weeks after that reduction, back in June. She said that they wanted to do an MRI-guided biopsy just to be sure.

On Tuesday, November 18th, I went in and had the two hour long MRI-guided biopsy. Phew! That was finally done. With the divorce filed, and this precautionary biopsy done, I felt like I had sort of been through the ringer, so to speak, but I could soon move on and put this entire thing behind me--the divorce and the biopsies.

But two days later, on November 20th, my phone rang. I recognized the number from my oncologist's office, and I answered, ready and fully expecting to be told that the masses were, in fact, scar tissue, and that they would see me in a year for my regular checkup. I had just gotten out of the shower and was standing in my bathroom in front of the mirror with a towel wrapped around my hair. Dr. Yadav said, "Hi, Meghan. Are you at home right now?" I told her that I was, and she asked me if I was alone. I knew immediately that something was wrong.

She slowly began telling me what they found. I don't remember what she said--I just remember hearing the word-- "carcinoma." That was cancer. I knew that word meant cancer. I sat in silence, trying to absorb what she was saying. I remember that she told me that they had caught my cancer as early as it is possible to detect it, that it really was pure chance, a "miracle," that we caught it when we did. She told me that if I had to have breast cancer, this was the "best case scenario." She told me that the chances of this being found in the manner that mine was found was less than 1/2 of a percent. She told me I was "lucky," but that she understood I must be feeling a lot of feelings. She asked if I would be okay if we got off of the phone. I assured her that I would. She told me they would call to schedule me for next steps. And the recommended next steps were a lumpectomy, radiation, and 3-5 years of Tamoxifen. She told me that my cancer was 98% curable.

We got off of the phone, and the rest of that day is pretty fuzzy in my mind. I know I called my sister Emily first. Then I called my dad, my mom, my sister Isabel, my sister Paige, my sister Cameron. I called my soon-to-be ex-husband. I called my best friend Keri. I put on the bravest face I had and called my son. Then I got off of the phone with him and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed like the world was ending. I was exhausted. I was shaking. I would feel fine one second, and then I would be gut-wrenched straight to my knees in a state of terrorizing panic. Keri had asked me if I needed her to come from Florida to be with me for the weekend. I told her I had a busy weekend planned and that I thought I would be fine. A short time after getting off of the phone with her, I got a text from her that was a screenshot of her flight itinerary to come for the next morning. I had asked her to tell our dear friend Patty the news for me, and ten minutes later I got a text from Patty that just said, "I'm coming, too. I love you. I will see you soon."

And those two women flew in, scooped me into their arms literally and proverbially, and carried me through that weekend. We laughed, we cried, we shopped, we went to holiday parties, we snuggled my dogs, we drank obscene amounts of coffee. And the panic and distress and fear and creeping anger I was experiencing were curbed by these two women, my angels, my friends.

The following week, my friends Emma and Jackie went with me to my appointment, where the lumpectomy plan began to change. The surgeon said the masses, after looking at them more closely, were too big, and I would need a mastectomy of the right side, and then I would still need radiation, maybe, and to take the Tamoxifen for several years. There was a chance that the cancer would come back at some point in the other breast, but the hope was the Tamoxifen would minimize this. It was about a 30% chance, maybe less with the medicine. I didn't like these odds.

"Can you take them both?" I asked, "What if you take them both?" She hesitated and said, "That's an option." She told me that if I did that, I could probably avoid taking the medication--the one that would send me into instant menopause and that comes with a litany of side effects and dangers of its own. "I want you to take both breasts. Do the double mastectomy." She said she would give me the weekend to think about it. "I don't need the weekend to think about it. I've said all along that if the double mastectomy is an option, I'm doing it. I'm not willing to take the risk of it coming back on the other side and having to do all of this over again. I want you to schedule the double mastectomy."

The following weeks are a blur. I know Christmas came and went. I know my sisters and my friends, near and far, lifted me up and carried me through that time--through ALL of this time--a YEAR of time. I've brought up The Footprints poem before. I'm not a Christian. And my God is not the prototypical "man in the sky" kind of image. My God is LOVE. And my God shows up in the hands and feet and faces and hearts of the people I love and who love me. And when I tell you that I don't think my feet have touched the earth in the last year, especially since November 20th, I mean it sincerely. I have been carried by the most incredible community of people, mostly women. My God--so fucking many of you, too many to name.

And on January 29th, I had a double mastectomy, with Keri and Emma at the hospital by my side and dozens of you checking in with them and receiving updates. They put together a schedule and made lists and when Keri had to fly home, my friend Tylyn flew in from Jacksonville to take her place. And people behind the scenes who don't wish to be named and people from literally all over the world have helped however they have been able to.

I was not prepared for the double mastectomy and what that entailed. I stupidly thought it would be very similar to my reduction. It was not. When I woke up after surgery, I was in an amount of excruciating pain I didn't know was physically possible to feel. I remember just screaming. I'd had surgery. I'd been through natural labor and childbirth. And this was unlike anything. It felt like my chest was on fire, like it was burning and being stabbed with a million knives while it burned. They gave me Fentanyl. They gave me more Fentanyl. I stopped breathing. For two and a half hours, a nurse sat at my bedside with a Narcan kit and rubbed my upper chest above my clavicles each time I stopped breathing to remind me to inhale and exhale. I spent two extra days in the hospital.

And when I came home, I began the mindfuck of body dysmorphia, phantom pain, a world of drugs and nerve blockers and pain meds and physical therapy and pain--so much goddamned pain. Ten days after surgery, my surgeon called with biopsy results. "Meghan," she said cheerfully. I already knew this was a very different phone call than the last one. "Yes?" I said. "We did it. We got it all. You are cancer free. We don't have to do chemo. We don't have to do radiation. We got it all. Your margins are good. Your lymph nodes are clear." I hung up the phone and sobbed. It was the first tears of relief I had cried in ages.

Since then, I've been through expander fills. A lot of you have had questions about what this means, and at least one of you has expressed confusion about why it looks like I have breasts--ha! When I had my surgery, a plastic surgeon came in and his team took over after my breast cancer surgeon's team was done. He placed expanders, thick round plastic bags with ports in them, into my empty breast spaces. He sewed them into my pectoral muscles, all the way around. And over the weeks following that surgery, I have gone to his office where a nurse has used a magnet to locate the ports, inserted a large needle in each side, and injected liquid to slowly stretch the skin back out and keep placeholders for my next surgery, which will be on September 15th.

During that surgery, my surgeon will perform a DIEP Flap--cutting through my lower abdomen to take fat stores and veins and arteries from that area to create me natural breasts (versus implants). It's a 10-12 hour surgery, as they remove the tissue from my lower abdomen and then open up my chest to remove the expanders and replace them with my own body fat. This requires removing parts of two ribs, re-sectioning blood supply and sewing together blood vessels and arteries. Three months after that, I will undergo a much smaller, simpler surgery, one where they will remove additional tissue from my thighs to complete the process of the reconstruction. By December 31st of 2026, I should be done with surgeries, and I will have natural breasts, breasts that look like mine, made of my tissue. I will never have feeling in them again; the nerves have all been severed. They do not regenerate. I will never again have feeling of any kind in my chest. But I will have breasts.

I always thought I would be one of those women who, if faced with breast cancer, would get a double mastectomy, and that would be that. No implants. No fat transfer. No breasts at all. Just flat. I thought I would wear those scars proudly and enjoy not having to wear a shirt at the beach. But the truth is that you just don't know what you will do until you're in the situation. And I hope you never are. I hope you never have to make these decisions. This has been the hardest experience I have ever been through, and I was going through it under a BEST CASE SCENARIO. I have dealt with so much guilt and hesitation to share or get upset or get angry, because what I went through was so much easier compared to what so many other women, even women I know, are experiencing, have experienced, will experience. One in eight of us. So, so many of us.

Why am I so candidly sharing all of this? I don't know. It helps. Somehow. And sharing makes me feel connected. And honest. It feels like the right thing for me to do somehow, in a way I don't really know how to describe. I was given the benefit of so many women reaching out to share their stories with me. And I have been saved by these stories, by so many other women's stories. It reminds me of the beautiful Jewish parable about The Baal Shem Tov. It's too long to share here, but I recommend that you look it up and read it when you have five minutes or so. How many times in my life have I been saved by hearing other people's stories? It's a lot. And this experience has been the truest testament to that. Ram Dass says we are all just here to walk each other home, and my God--so many of you have been walking me home in this season. And sharing my story feels like the beginning of helping walk others home in similar seasons.

I saw a meme once that said, "You haven't even met all of the people who are going to love you." This last year has been a reminder of this. Five to six years ago, I did not know the majority of the people who have been my God-hands and God-hearts over this last year. One of the people who has been most instrumental in supporting me through surgery and recovery is someone I didn't even meet until November. God has sent me just the Love I needed at all of the exact moments I have needed it.

It feels unjust to complain about how difficult the last year has been, but I want to be clear--it has been really, really, really fucking hard. I have never cried so much, raged so much, screamed so much, felt so exhausted, defeated, beaten down, weak, angry, sad, scared. I've never felt so lost in a way only people who have experienced similar things seem able to relate to. The woman who existed, the one I spent 40+ years learning about and curating and getting to know--she disappeared in an instant. The moment she heard those words, "You have cancer," she changed. Forever. There's no going back to the innocence and security and naivete in which she lived up to that point.

But there is now this sense of being stuck in an in-between state, a limbo. That woman is gone forever, but the one who is typing all of this right now doesn't quite know or fully recognize herself. The Meghan who will exist on the other side of this entire experience--the divorce, the cancer, the recovery from cancer, the surgeries, the experience of coming face to face with the very real fact that we are mortal and this life on earth is delicate and fragile and more precious than we know, the way it can change completely in a second--that Meghan, whoever she will be, is still coming to fruition. I don't know her yet either.

I was reflecting tonight on the way that I had always hoped if I faced something like this, I would do it in a way that other people would think was graceful. We all want to think that, I suppose. We want to be the people we see with the great senses of humor and the strength and the resilience and the class and tact and fierce spirits, ya know? If I ever had to go through this kind of hell, I wanted other people to see me do it and think, "Wow. She's really handling this well." I wanted to have spunk and spark and ferocity and love and a great sense of humor. And the truth is that I've mostly just felt exhausted and dissociated, often trapped deep in my own thoughts and body, isolated from all of you, and there has been a lot of loneliness. There is a measure of having to go through this alone, no matter how closely so many of my Loves have been by my side. It's been so much pain, so much frustration. It's required a level of patience and grace with myself I continue to struggle with. And the anger. And the insomnia. And the tears. So many tears. They come without warning or the manners to even give me a smidgeon of notice. There is no way to do this gracefully. But as a perfectionist, I think it's been good for me. There's something healing in not having to be "good at" any of this stupid fucking bullshit I've faced.

I came home from work this afternoon and made a home cooked dinner for someone very special to me, and we ate it at sunset on my deck. And just before bedtime, I hosted a small solo living room dance party with my dogs, and then I sat down in my living room, MY living room, in MY apartment, where my nervous system, one year later, is learning how to rest and savor the sweetness of life again, and I had a good, hard cry. And when I went to bed, instead of raging at my insomnia, I decided to go through my photos of the last year. The good stuff.

Because while it has been the very most difficult year of my entire life, an absolute helluva shit show of a year, I'm still here. And I'm still standing. And I'm healthy and happy and recovering and moving forward. And I'm learning such profound lessons I would not have learned any other way. And I'm humbled and have never known the closeness to the God of my understanding that the last year has given me. Even in the worst of the worst moments, I've felt God--my precious, tender, sweet God. I've been Held. I've been Carried. I've been Loved beyond my wildest dreams.

So many of you have been here with me--sharing, showing up, laughing, crying, raging, giving me the grace I often deny myself, and loving me into being, into my new life, into the whatever-comes-next. I love each and every one of you. One year later--as the dust settles and I process, really process, the last year, I see something undeniable coming into focus. The gift of this year, and do not be mistaken; it has been a lot of things, but most certainly, above all, this year has been a gift, maybe even the greatest gift of all.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.