Letters from Laryssa

Hello my beautiful friend,       So, this story is a little embarrassing for me to tell because it’s the story of how I found my lump and how long it took for me to get it checked out. I am hoping my story will help others in my situation make a different decision.     I found my lump in June of 2019. I'm not sure what led me to do a breast exam. I was young, no history of breast cancer in my family, but nonetheless, I did and found a lump. I didn’t think anything of it. I thought it was just a stupid little cyst and went on with my life. As time went on, it stayed there, and I did a little research and found that women who undergo hormonal changes may get little cysts in their breasts. I had a hysterectomy in April of 2019 and have dealt with endometriosis and PCOS most of my life, so issues with my hormones was not new to me. I thought that was the reason I had a lump; nothing for me to worry about.     My husband found my lump in Oct...

  Hello my beautiful friend,           For a lot of women, myself included, one of the worst parts of going through chemo is losing our hair. We're already fighting this horrible disease, and we are faced with the reality that we won't even look like ourselves when our fight is over. So I had a decision to make. Let my hair fall out on its own or shave it off. For me, it wasn’t a difficult decision; I knew I didn’t want to lose my hair, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option for me anymore. It would just be a matter of time for me.              Something my husband said helped me decide to shave it as a precursor to chemo; he asked me how I wanted to remember my journey. I was going to lose my hair, but what I did not want was the memory of waking up to clumps of hair on my pillow, or to be showering and see my hair going down the drain. Since I decided to shave my head, I figured I would make an event out of ...