Cancer is the only disease, besides AIDS (and morbid obesity), where everything is your fault and where you can fail at everything from diagnosis to treatment. While I "succeeded" at being "pro-active" (pushy) about catching my breast cancer early by insisting on an MRI, some might think I "failed" at resisting the better-safe-than-sorry option.

The choices we're faced with are not black and white. I, for one, understood that the actual statistical difference between watching the right breast for a recurrence and removing it completely may not have been huge. But while it may not have been exactly a six-of-one- half-dozen-of-the-other kind of choice, it was close enough. The decision I made may not have been the "right" one by purely mathematical standards, but it was not an ill-informed or misguided decision, either. It was a valid choice.

Most women, like me, I think, understand this difference, and make their choices accordingly. Our options are less than perfect, and our decisions may be less than perfect, too. But most lesser-of-two-evils kinds of choices usually are. So let's not blame the chooser.