Why these two sisters got mastectomies on the same day

It was so special. I kind of, I wish everybody going through mastectomy could have their sister or a close friend. Not that I want that for their loved one, but it was, it just kind of made the whole experience easier and more memorable in a positive way to have that support of somebody who really, really got what I was going through. Breast cancer first entered our lives when we were just little kids. I was nine and Julia was seven when my mom got her first diagnosis of breast cancer at the age of 42. Luckily, she was able to beat breast cancer. Unfortunately, it came back again 20 years later. She eventually passed from lung cancer five years ago. So we went through four different... cancer battles with my mother over the years. For me, the fear really struck about 11 years ago. I was just two months postpartum with my oldest son, and I was breastfeeding, and I found a lump in my breast. And, you know, it was terrifying. I'd never felt anything like that. I think the fragility of life had hit me, becoming a new mom. I went in, I had my ultrasound, and they came back and said it was benign. But that wasn't the end of that for me. This past summer, I also had. two biopsies in my breast that needed to be checked out and so i think that's where the reality hit me that this this felt like something that was coming for me and it just felt like it was a matter of time i had been doing self exams i had been getting annual mammograms. So it was two months of waiting and then getting mammograms, ultrasounds, MRIs, and biopsies until I got the results. So when I went into the doctor's office that morning and she said, Lila, I'm sorry to say this is cancer. You have triple negative breast cancer. I felt shocked still. How can this be? This can't be. I don't have space in my life for cancer. I've got three kids who need me. I've got four jobs. I have all these commitments. And they're all so important to me. I don't know how I make cancer fit. And my wonderful doctor said as compassionately and as frankly as possible, well, Lila, you're going to have to make it fit. You're the patient now. And she was completely right. I did have to make some big changes in my life. Lila's just an incredible person because... She just met this challenge with acceptance and courage and hope and determination and honesty and all the ways that I would hope to if it ever happened to me. I was set for needing my second mastectomy surgery in the fall. And Julia was somewhere on the wait list because she was eligible for a preventative one, given the high-risk nature of it. And she got bumped up on the wait list because it became even more high-risk when she needed these two biopsies. And so we ended up being right next to each other on the wait list. And they said, well, what if we could make this work on the same day? And they did make it work. I watched what my mom went through, and I watched what my sister went through. And I would do anything for more time with my family, with my loved ones, with my children. And this felt like the gift of time.