We are more than our diagnosis.
My MBC story: I’m a 42 year old mother who has been thriving with MBC for 9 years, 6 months, and 5 days!
I have been many things in life and carried many titles; and then I learned I was about to be the most miraculous thing I have ever become—Mom to a baby boy. I had miscarried so many times, I never believed I’d get to the end of a pregnancy, but I did. In October, 2014, my much-wanted child came into this world,my baby, my boy, and he was amazing. I was 31 years old.
The trouble that I had breast-feeding?
Nerves, no doubt.
All that fatigue? I had an infant.
The back pain? Getting over pregnancy and lifting a toddler.
And then it got worse. Stomach pain and more fatigue, and that nagging lump in my breast that had to be a blocked milk duct. My OB was certain of it, “they are common while nursing,” I had, “no reason to worry.”
Fast forward and I find myself in the ER with abdominal pain, during a scan to identify whatever was making my stomach hurt so badly, suspicious lesions were noted on my liver. I mentioned that nagging milk duct, and the doctor laid hands on it to examine it, and the panic in the doctor’s face was obvious. The ER immediately engaged Vanderbilt Breast Center, and everything in my life, my world, and my future changed. I had aggressive HER2+ breast cancer, Stage 4, with mets to lymphs, liver, adrenals, right lung, right ovary, and spine, at the time of first diagnosis. My miracle baby was only 18 months old. It was 2016, and my 33rd birthday.
The first round of chemo was devastating. I turned into a puking billiard ball without a single hair on my body, who stayed asleep most of the time. We thought I’d die in a matter of months, a couple of years tops. But science advanced. I persevered. My family rallied around me and supported my baby steps and then my bigger steps. And now I am 9 years down the road with a soon-to-be eleven-year-old, and three additional children who came into my life with their father—ages 11, 12, and 14. I’ve survived through hundreds of chemo infusions, two complete single mastectomies (exactly 30 days apart), 25 rounds of radiation, and more biopsies, tests, and procedures than I can remember. I intend to live, to thrive, and to write more paragraphs on this summary every five years or so.
So that’s me. I’m not the miracle—that’s my kid. I’m a woman who’s living with a terminal diagnosis that I refuse to be defined by, and believe I can manage. I’m a mom, and a friend, and a daughter, and a niece, and many, many other things. I still read ginormous doorstop fantasy novels as soon as I can get my hands on the next one. I might teach my kids to swear in Klingon just for fun, like my brother does. I plan what new country or beach I will visit next as soon as I get home from the last one. You never know what I’ll do next, and cancer doesn’t get to dictate that. Fuck cancer. I’m living my life.
