Please get your mammograms- early detection saves lives

Early breast cancer detection saves lives and makes treatment much more manageable.  I am very thankful that I went through radiation.  Why would anyone be thankful to go through radiation?  I will tell you why; chemotherapy is much worse and what's even worse than chemotherapy; death.  Going through radiation I used the same dressing room and treatment waiting for area that the chemotherapy patients used, and there were times I felt a sort of survivor's guilt sitting with them.  I had good odds, and although cancer is scary, breast cancer stage 1 is not as frightening as 3 or 4, ect.   What most of the chemotherapy patients had in common, they waited too long in between mammograms. 

MyLap Pet Bed design may have come from a bad time, but it helped me find a better place.  In honor of breast cancer awareness month, here is the story…

The unique pet bed design came to me at one of the lowest points of my life: when I was receiving radiation for breast cancer.  After a lumpectomy, I began a long 7-week course of radiation. At just 41 years old, I couldn’t comprehend that this was happening. I kept most of what I was going through to myself, and only some family and a few close friends and co-workers knew what was actually going on.
 
Every day after work, I would go to my radiation treatment and then drive an hour and a half home.  My days were long, as the radiation made me so tired and sore.  My cat had always slept on, between, or against my legs (you cat parents know what I am talking about), but at that time, I was so sleep-deprived and achy that as much as I loved her, I just wanted her off of me.  I needed every bit of restful sleep I could get just to make it through the next day. All I kept thinking was there must be something out there that could simulate my lap for my cat while I could also remain comfortable. I searched every store I could think of and scoured the internet but found nothing like what I was looking for.  
 
When I would lay on the radiation table, thinking of the need for a product like MYLAP™ Pet Bed not only gave me a distraction but it also gave me a new purpose. It was then that I decided to begin the process of designing and patenting something that could keep both my cat and I comfortable. There is nothing like a near-death experience to get you off your ass to follow your dream.  After I had my prototype made, I began testing it out on my cat and I noticed that my dog, who has every kind of anxiety including separation anxiety, was starting to steal the bed.  I realized it calmed him as well, and I began finding him sleeping on it more and more. Even though it was too small for him, he didn’t seem to care one bit!  

It has been a long road, both in my personal recovery and the journey to launch this product, but I couldn’t be happier that I was able to turn something so devastating into something so positive.  

It's not always how hard you fall, it's how hard you get up!

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