Angela was 30 years old when she found a cancerous lump in her leg. As she worked her way back to health, she discovered just how cleverly disguised a blessing can be.
Angela's Story
"I found a lump, and I knew it wasn't normal."
It didn't hurt, it wasn't bruised. I found it in my left thigh a week after my 30th birthday. I went back home and did some research, just looking up lumps, and everything that I read about any kind of lump was not good.
It ended up being malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH), a soft tissue sarcoma. It normally affects senior citizens or really young kids, and it is normally found in your limbs and muscle mass. What I read was that of all the people diagnosed with MFH, 5,000-6,000 a year, half of them live and half of them don't.
"I knew it was cancer."
Dr. Wright, my doctor, called me and said, "We need to get in there right away and do a biopsy." He was very genuine and honest; it was like a friend telling me and not a typical medical doctor. He didn't use all these big words and things like that.
I knew my life was changing, but at that moment when I was in the dark room and they were doing the biopsy with the really big needle, I started crying. I remember Dr. Wright grabbing my leg and saying, "You know what? You can cry. This is definitely something you can cry about." I have always been strong, always, and even when I had grandparents die or any friends die, I never showed much emotion. I was always the happy one trying to keep it together for everyone else. But when I was laying there, I was like, "I don't have to be strong anymore and I am just going to put one foot in front of the other and deal with what I have to deal with." I was finally allowing myself to be real, be a real person. It is ok to cry, it is ok to be mad, it is ok to say no, it is ok to feel guilt, it is ok to feel frustrated, it is ok to be a real person.
"I was in surgery a week after the biopsy."
It was such a high grade of cancer, it was rare and aggressive, and they didn't see it in 30-year-old women, they just didn't. I had written out pages and pages of questions, and Dr. Wright went through every question with me. This type of cancer, a lot of times, they used to cut off the leg, but he said the little bit of study that has been done found that surgery and radiation or cutting off the leg both have the same outcome.
They took out pretty much this whole top muscle, and they left the bone and took some of the skin on top. I saw a plastic surgeon before and he did the incision and he closed it up so it would be neat and pretty, as much as a scar 12 inches long can be.
"All I knew was that I wanted to live, I wanted to see my daughter grow up, and I wanted to start a life with the man I had just met."
I call my scar my life line because it gave me my life back. Cancer was a redirection. There was Angela before cancer and Angela after cancer. Angela before cancer was very self absorbed, selfish, I was running, working long hours. After cancer I realized it is not about the hours I work, but about the memories that I make. Life is not a dress rehearsal, and I don't want to look back and play that would've, could've, should've game, ever.