"The girls are still at an age where they rush me and they're like, 'Mommy's home!' And I think that was really devastating to me, because I knew I was about to tell them something that was going to completely change the mood in the room.
"We walked them to the couch and I said, 'I have to tell you something, but I want to tell you before I begin that I'm OK. But I got some bad news from the doctors and I found out that I have breast cancer.' And my 10-year-old immediately just burst into tears. She knew immediately that it was extremely scary, and the funny thing is, I had been crying all day, but when I told them, I suddenly became strong. So when they started crying I was able to completely not cry. Suddenly you just get this inner strength as a mom.
"My 7-year-old didn't know what to do. She knew something bad was happening. But I just told them, 'Mommy is not going to die, mommy is a fighter. You know me, I'm a trooper. And I'm not going to let cancer bring me down. The next six months I'm going to go through surgery, I'm probably going to have to have chemotherapy, but you guys are going to be strong with me.'"
