Breast Cancer Changed the Life I Imagined at 29. But It Was Still Mine to Build.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.Twenty-nine was to be the first year of the rest of my life. I was active and healthy, an avid runner with a well-established career in healthcare. Newly engaged, Ryan and I were searching for our forever home and imagining what our future family may look like. One child? How about two? Yes, two! I’d always wondered what being a mom would be like. In no time, our venue was booked and our lives were on course to merge in the most perfect way.But all of that would come to a halt in January 2016 when I returned to the comfort of my living room couch from an outdoor cold-weather run, just a normal part of a normal day. I crossed my arms to warm up, almost as though I was hugging myself. Almost immediately, I felt something in my left breast that wasn’t there before, something that did not belong. Something ... alarming. It was firm and nearly the size of a golf ball, not painful but strangely immovable. Recognizing this to be outside of what I knew to be normal for my body, I contacted my primary care physician’s office the next day, and I would find myself sitting nervously in her office the following morning.“Mindy, I’m concerned,” my PCP said...