Emily~Breast Cancer survivor

I am 33 married with 3 children. 2 girls and 1 boy. Each one of them bring a special joy to my heart. My oldest daughter, Kayla, is 12 and has Autism and Mosaic Turner Syndrome. My poor baby has had more tests and surgery's and procedures that I am amazed at her strength everyday. It gets very challenging at times but we are lucky she is "high" functioning. Thats not to say that it hasnt been without its challanges. My Kristina is 7 and is me all over - those of you who know me? know that I have my hands full with that one lol. She is beautiful and talented and such a girlie girl I LOVE IT! My baby, my son Aidan (whos name I got from Sex and the City of course..lol) is my absolute sunshine. Giving me reasons to laugh everyday. Right now I am in the fight of my life. I was diagnosed with Advanced stage 3 breast cancer in july of 2006. Not only that, but I carry the gene that not only increases my chance for breast cancer to come back, my chances of ovarian cancer is high as well. This gene, BRCA1, puts my kids at risk which is what scares me the most! My poor family has had to endure so much this past year that I hated to have to add this on top of everything else. -My dad has cancer as well. Diagnosed in February 2006. Stage 3 and very aggressive like mine. It has already spread to the liver and now to the brain. I have my parents living here with us so that I can help my mom with my dads care. My whole kids playroom is now a comfortable hospital room. Family is everything to me. I hope for my kids that I am able to beat the odds and go beyound the 5 year statistic which is 56%. I just take each day as it comes. Some are bad, some are good. Most of all I am just glad the come! I think about the eating disorder that nearly killed me and the destructive relationships I have had and the 4 suicides in my family and think I should be able to beat this! If I can over come all of these twists and turns in my life I should be able to beat this. I try to stay positve, although at times it gets hard but I try to push threw each day. I have since, lost my dad and am working on rebuilding the life that was crushed in Breast cancers "storm". I have great friends and a great community that has rallied around us and supported us by making dinners and offering child care...They even threw us a fundraiser that raised over 14,000 for my father and myself to help with medical bills how wonderful is that? I am on the journey of recovery. Hair is starting to grow back and I have begun reconstruction again. Hopefully, by March I will be done all of the treatment. I look forward to it! - I just look forward!Stage IIIA: T0-2, N2, M0 / T3, N1-2, M0: The tumor is smaller than 5 cm in diameter and has spread to 4 to 9 axillary lymph nodes; or it is found through imaging studies or clinical exam to have spread to internal mammary nodes; or the tumor is larger than 5 cm and has spread to 1 to 9 axillary nodes, or to internal mammary nodes. In all cases, the cancer hasn't spread to distant sites.