I love my life and I hate my life

I love my life, I'm a SAHM to a very curious and very active 4 year old, he keeps me on my toes both physically and mentally b/c he's smart as a whip (I never understood that saying). I have a wonderful husband who doesn't want me to go back to work, at least until our son is in school all day, and does so much for me. I have a wonderfully close and insane family, we are truly out there some times but we are really close, and I don't just mean me and my sisters and our parents, we have 15 cousins on my Dad's side and we do keep in touch, my Mom's side would seem smaller because in addition to me and my sisters, we have 2 cousins, but we also are close with my Mom's cousins and their children, I think we're talking close to 20 on that side, but I'm not sure, it could be more if I actually counted and yes we are crazy. I don't mean really insane, just we like having fun, we talk a lot, not as much as we should though, and well, we're related so that just means a lot of inside jokes and the same stories over and over again.

I hate my life: I have a cousin who is battling for her life right now in the hospital, she lost her husband to colon cancer after a very short battle (he was diagnosed just before Thanksgiving 2007) on February 11, 2008 (I remember the date b/c it was my father's birthday), her Mom died the end of last April at the age of 90. She has 8 kids, 7 girls and 1 boy and she's touched many lives in this area. I hate that she's suffering, I hate what her kids are going through, I hate that though she's 62 and a maternity nurse/lactation consultant she's never, NEVER had a mammogram. She found the lump close to a year before she did anything about it.

And most of all I hate myself for being angry with her for not taking care of herself. I feel so selfish thinking of this, I don't want anything to happen to her, I don't want to have to miss her too, I hate cancer and I hate the fear that surrounds it so that people avoid the very tests that could save their lives.

I love my life, my other cousin who found a lump in her breast was told today that it is NOT cancer!!!

All that being said, I'm calling Monday to schedule my Mammogram. I'll be 40 in a couple of weeks and I had a baseline at 36 which had me running around to doctors for close to a year b/c I have dense breasts, but, well I would rather get my breasts squished between 2 pieces of plexiglass than not know. Knowledge is power. If there is anything there I can handle it because I know what I'm facing. Playing ostrich doesn't stop anything and usually only makes things worse.