Living With Joy—And Finding Love—In Spite of a Metastatic Breast Cancer Diagnosis
glamour.comother lumps. She biopsied the lump, and the very next day (on May 6, 2015), she called me into the hospital. In a little room, the breast specialist sat down, put her hand on my knee, and confirmed that I did have breast cancer. (Yes, as an 18-year-old.) I had a double mastectomy a week later, the day of my senior prom.I was told I was cancer-free after the mastectomy, but a follow-up PET scan a week later showed the cancer was metastatic, or stage IV—it had already spread to my bones and liver. (Since then, it’s spread to my brain and lungs, too.) The oncologist explained that metastatic breast cancer isn’t curable, but it is treatable.
My soul crumbled when I heard the words “not curable.”I ran out of the room, through the hallway, and wound up crying in a garden.
When I was ready, I made my way back into the little room and heard the words that would get me through this diagnosis: “I have patients with your same diagnosis who have been alive and well since the ’90s,” the doctor said. “There are more and more treatments coming out all the time.
The future is bright.” I decided right then and there that I would be one of those people.A few days later I had my first chemo treatment in the morning.
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