I heard the three words nobody wants to hear — “You have cancer.” What? How could this be? Just five days earlier, I was having my mammogram done. They had told me something “didn’t look right,” so they wanted me to have an ultrasound. I had been down this road many times before because of my dense breast tissue, so I thought, “Okay. Not a big deal.” After the ultrasound, the doctor came in the room and said, “Something doesn’t look right. There are three spots we would like to biopsy.” Okay. Now they had me a little worried. I got the dreaded call late in the day on a Friday afternoon. “You have invasive ductal carcinoma, (IDC).” What? Had I heard that right? Yes, unfortunately, I had and it sent my mind reeling down the path of, “How did this happen?” There was no family history. I had led a relatively healthy life and exercised on a regular basis. Up until that point, I had not been prescribed any medications, but at every doctor appointment following my diagnosis, they would take my blood pressure once and then take it again, because they could not believe how high it was. Finally, my general practitioner said, “Sorry, Laurie, but I cannot let you leave the office without putting you on a prescription for high blood pressure.” So he prescribed me two medications […]