I know it seems a little cliche once you or a loved one gets diagnosed with breast cancer to start a blog and it is. Michele and I talk every day so we’re always caught up on each other’s lives.

This is more for those family and friends who we love dearly, but you know how life gets in the way and you can go months without talking but still pick up right back where you left off, this is more for them. It is also a good venue for us to be able to work through the day-to-day with this situation. For those who know us, we do like to talk a lot so hopefully this will help save some earballs along the way. Hey, maybe it’ll even be somewhat informative.

I would like to give a head’s up as well. People who know us know can vouch that we can’t help but be brutally honest in a semi-tactful way. We also do have an off-color or wicked sense of humor and tend to curse like sailors. I don’t plan on sanitizing our blog to accommodate the more sensitive types because this is who we are.  So, this is the official head’s up so no feelings get hurt, especially Michele’s. Hahaha. Following good ole’ Popeye’s stance, “I yam what I yam…”

The weekend of October 19 was an awesome, Michele, Josh, and Lily came down to visit us in Mount Vernon. We had tickets to for the Horseman’s Hollow at Philipsburg Manor for 8.30pm, you have to be there on time if not they don’t let you in supposedly.

Of course as per usual for the Costa-Bells, they were running late. It was about 8:10 p.m., Jason and I are waiting outside of Philipsburg Manor with neither the Bells nor a Costa. I’m stressing that we’re going to miss out on all the Halloween fun. Thankfully, they did show up around 8:15 p.m.  Unfortunately, we still had to stand around for another half-hour so all that death-defying speeding was for naught.

The haunted house was OK, I have a rather high threshold for scary things which is unfortunate for those around me because that means the haunted house workers love the challenge of trying to scare me. But, it only terrifies those around me more, wah wah.  I also unintentionally accomplished the goal of traumatizing Lily who now needs many years of therapy and probably won’t set foot in another haunted house until she is 25. Sorry Lily, I’ll chip in for those therapy sessions.

That Sunday, we did our usual routine, Josh spending endless amounts of time making my hair look amazing while we all watch television and talk mad smack about whats’ on very Mystery Science 3000ish.  This particular weekend the movie to illicit our perceived hilarious criticisms was The Matrix***.

Sorry my memory is shot so I can only remember my own criticisms but rest assured Michele, Josh, Lily, and Jason were chock full of them too. My criticisms included: Out of all the people to be the One, it had to be Keanu Reeves? Sorry for The Matrix lovers out there but Keanu Reeves will always be Ted no matter what role he plays. But good for him making a blockbuster career on two facial expressions, unconvincingly slightly surprised and unconvincingly surprised. Also using people as a power source seems to be very inefficient, I would think that the machines would have come up with a better solution than that.  Anyway I digress…

That was our last blissfully ignorant hang out session before the cancer diagnosis. Not too long after that Michele mentioned she had a lump in her left breast which has been there for about a year. The lump had grown in size, but she didn’t seem too worried. She was also sick with a cold and her armpit recently started to swell up too, all of which was rather painful. She saw the doctor and was sent for a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound. That same day, they fit her in for the biopsy.

It really sucks they don’t give you the results right away, instead you have to wait days to get them. Even still Michele pretty much knew at the mammogram and ultrasound she had cancer based on what she saw on the ultrasound and the way everyone was treating her. But until you get confirmation your mind is all over the place, maybe they made a mistake and everything is fine? Maybe everything is much, much worse? What the hell is going on?

After what seemed like an eternity (in reality it was about 6 days) we got confirmation that Michele indeed did have breast cancer. But, that was all they could tell us. So yet again more waiting! We’ve already lost a year’s worth of time.

Instead of hurrying up, we would have to wait until she spoke with her oncologist for more details. That appointment wasn’t going to be for another two weeks. Just the beginning of this journey is moving at a snail’s pace, this is going to be a loonnnnggg ride.

***Disclaimer Before the angry hate mail about how I didn’t care for The Matrix begins. I didn’t watch this movie until fairly recently so I missed how cool it was back in 1999. Also, I should mention I worked at Blockbuster and a movie theatre as a young adult. Those job experiences helped create an unfounded hatred for specific movies because of how people can be such d-bags to customer service workers.