From the minute I got “the call” all I could think was “Oh, fuck. I'm gonna die!” but for my filmmaker husband Jonathan, the first thing he said was “Should we bring a camera to the doctor’s office?”

My initial reaction was an emphatic ‘no’, but a day later a friend showed up with a camera and began filming me as I headed out the door to my first doctor's appointment. I was in such a state of shock that the last thing I paid any attention to, was a friend with a camera in hand. And anyway, it was comforting to have someone around all the time.

The first days were such a whirlwind of madness. All the doctors appointments, all the information to take in, all the unknowns. I only had 10 days from the day I received the news, until the day I went in for surgery. It was very scary and very surreal. But there was such an outpouring of love and support that I felt remarkably protected, and in some ways, stronger than ever. I walked through the surgery doors equipped with an iPod filled with prayers and poetry read by friends and family, and the sweet sound of Talula saying her first word over and over again (which happened to be ‘hola’). As my friend Tricia said in the healing circle she organized: the power of prayer is real. I believe that now more than ever.

About a month after my surgery I was sitting around and noticed a bunch of DV tapes in box on my desk. It was the tapes from those beginning days. I started to watch them and was stunned at what I saw. I saw myself; me with breast cancer. I saw my friends and family surround me in love and support, me breastfeeding Talula for the last time, me walking through those surgery doors. In that moment, I knew I had to make this film.

Ultimately making the film was very cathartic. It changed my life. It's an extraordinary thing to process something as big as getting cancer through creating art. And now, sharing the film with others is proving to be gratifying in more ways than I ever imagined. It's true, blessings come in the most unexpected ways.

Thank you Ali Meletta, Joe and Niki Gregory, Jessica Hirsch Biales, Tony Ciaccio, Jonathan Stack, Peter Ginsburg, Blaise Hayward, Tricia Regan, Eric Zeller, Orbit Digital, Kathryn Himoff, Sheila Nevins, Jackie Glover and so many more, for making this all possible.

~ Lori