On the eve of my 36th Birthday I contemplate, “ How does one celebrate a birthday after a Stage Four Breast Cancer Diagnosis in the middle of a global pandemic while raising a 5 month old”? ***All past, present and future moms please read below or really anyone who is a woman or knows a woman....so everyone*** Over the last 3.5 months I have seen two lactation consultants, one breast specialist and my OBGYN all to figure out what was causing my left breast to hurt when I fed with it, turn red, hot, swollen, dimple and harden but wasn’t responding to antibiotics or any treatment for severe inflammation and breast infections. I had already gotten an ultrasound in March the same day Shelter in Place was mandated that came back with a Mastitis diagnosis but the mammogram which could’ve given a clearer image was canceled due to me not bringing a breast pump they never told me to bring. No follow up was needed after the Mastitis diagnosis and I was given antibiotics. The antibiotics didn’t work within the first 72hrs which isn’t uncommon ( according to online forums) but my OBGYN said that it was abnormal yet continued to prescribe another round of a different antibiotic and then referred me to a breast specialist who I could only see via televisit. We tried a third round to which I stopped halfway through due to how poorly I was feeling. Finally another ultrasound and this time I brought a mother fucking pump. Three antibiotics, one nipple cream, two ultrasounds, two mammograms, and three biopsies before it was finally confirmed that I had breast cancer. A most insidious kind, Inflammatory Breast Cancer which doesn’t look like typical Breast Cancer, is more aggressive, effects younger women, and disguises itself as a breastfeeding infection. So it infects the one area that is your baby’s life source. What kind of sick purveyor of my fate gave me the gift to bring life into this world only to try and take mine in it’s place? Zack and I vacillate between utter devastation and fierce determination. The narrative of