What's everyone crying about?

Obviously no one wants breast cancer. But if you have it, you might as well make the best out of it. At least that's what my sister and I were planning to do.

As soon as we found out when the surgery was going to take place, my sister got on the phone with several bars in Hoboken and booked a spot to party.

So many of my closest friends drove through a snow storm to make it, and we had a blast! Even my "twegger" from Brooklyn came along!

I can't thank my friends and family enough for all of their smiles and support through all of this. I love you all!

Sunnyside up?

Given the fact that I will be going for treatment (chemo and radiation), the doctor advised me to have my eggs frozen in order to save these good lookin' genes.

So, day by day, the successes I've been celebrating are the fact that my body is doing as it should and I'm making the starts of little babes in my oven. Once they're ready to go, I will have them stored in a facility where my mom jokes about visiting her little "grandchildren."

Lunch with the boys

It hit me pretty hard when 3 of my favorite Pequannock boys were standing in my mom's kitchen waiting to take me out to lunch at the Pompton Queen Diner.

They drove me out to eat, and we met my other friends with their girlfriends. For moments at a time, it felt like we all just went for a bite to eat. But as soon as I forgot for that moment, seconds later, I remembered I had breast cancer. And that's why we were out to eat.

Red heels and the cute, dorky doctor

Once the cancer had been confirmed, there were a slew of doctor appointments to come. So, I promised myself that for each appointment, I would dress up, as though I was going somewhere fun.


The day of my MRI, I curled my hair, wore my tight jeans, a black shirt, red heels, red lipstick, ruby chandelier earrings and matching bracelet with my red scarf. Once I was brought back to change into my gown for the exam, I realized something funny. I had to walk around in only the gown and my red heels! I felt like such a hoochie!


So, I sat in the exam room waiting for the doctor and in he comes with his cute girl assistant. The doctor was probably just 30 years old, dark hair, glasses. Very cute, but very nerdy. The procedure included putting a marker onto the tumor location of my breast. When he walked in the room, he immediately started speaking nervously and asked if I wanted to place the marker on my breast, or if he should.


Looking behind him, I knew he was nervous; he didn't shut the door! Which I thought was funny. I asked if we could close the door as "not to give the rest of the hospital a show." We all giggled. He then reaches down to put the marker on my breast, and I noticed his hand was shaking and all I kept thinking was, this was his job and he's nervous because of me! hahaha


The cute girl assistant could see what was happening and she gave me a funny look as the two of us made the connection of the red lipstick, red heels and nervous dorky doctor.

My Tata Story

On December 12, 2008, I became another statistic. A woman with breast cancer, but at the age of 26.

Leading up to this date, I spoke with a friend who had a lump in her breast, got it checked out and it was nothing; I ran into a friend from college who had been diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 29; and I continued to have dreams about my Mema who had only passed away two months before. Cancer was all too close to my heart.

One day, I felt something that seemed a bit unfamiliar. So I went to the OBGYN and the doctor said, "Well, this doesn't seem like anything. But due to your family history (Mema), let's have it checked out."

Next thing I knew, I was in for an ultrasound. The radiologist saying, "This really doesn't seem like anything. But perhaps we should do a biopsy."

In a few short days, I was getting results from this biopsy that I had stage 1 cancer in my left breast. At the age of 26.

Then on December 12, I was at my office, just about to help with wrapping Christimas gifts for homeless families during lunchtime when I found out. Moments after the words were uttered from my doctor, I started crying and then stopped, and made a decision. I was going to fight this and not cry, not get upset, but make a conscious decision to beat the heck out of cancer with a smile on my face, lipstick on my lips and heels on my feet. I would not feel like a cancer patient, but just Kara, with a temporary disease.

So here's my story of how I beat breast cancer.