Life after cancer.
Let’s just get the superficial complaints over with first… my left boob is lower than my right. It annoys me. It’s taken forever for my hair to feel healthy again and I’ve done PRP and PPR and topical sprays to help it regrow. And I think it is, but I wonder what it would be like if i wasn’t taking the Tamoxifen which basically turns off my hormones, throwing me into menopause.
But aside from that, 2 years later I just feel insanely grateful. I look back at 2021 and 2022 and it’s all a blur. Diagnosed so shortly after Covid I experienced a few years that I refer to as “the years that weren’t.” Years that basically didn’t exist as we know it, and have faded into my exceptionally fragmented memory along with denial.
The most disorienting part was after I finished radiation, the last of three steps in my treatment. It was my final session and I simply walked out of Dana Farber and that was it. I was done. I felt like I was dropped off at a bus stop and had no idea where I was. Just deposited on the sidewalk with the words resonating in my head - what now?
There had to be some kind of follow up protocol, right? I went online and decided to speak with one of Dana Farber’s nutritionists. I already lived an “anti-cancer” lifestyle - prioritizing whole foods, limiting anything processed, balanced meals… but I needed to see if she held the missing information so I would never get sick again. She didn’t. She was impressed by my knowledge and eating habits, encouraged me to continue what I was doing and wished me well.
I reached out to the Soul Mates group, the organization within Dana Farber that pairs patients with other women with similar diagnoses but were at least 2 years post cancer. The woman I spoke with was getting ready to head to the airport for work, life had resumed for her at her usual pace and she reassured me that I too would start to feel “normal”. I wasn’t reassured. I felt anything but normal.
Someone had suggested an acupuncturist. So I went. And when he asked me why I was there, I said I didn’t know, someone told my husband I should do it. So he addressed the inflammation in my knee, the anxiety and knots in my stomach and told me that the redness on the lobe of my right ear meant potential cancer and he would put some pins there. I started to freak out. Then he told me all the things I couldn’t eat, the things in my house I needed to change, the pills I should be taking, drinks I should be drinking. I wrote it all down and left feeling overwhelmed and panicked. I went back one more time and told him how upset he made me feel and he said maybe I should see a therapist instead.
I felt like I had lost my identity. I didn’t want cancer to be what defined me. So I put it behind me. I stopped writing my blog. I focused on my business, even more bullish than before to educate other women about the power of food as fuel and medicine. To simplify healthy eating and habit change and movement so they would feel empowered in their own bodies. Because I had learned, that if you are strong in your body, you’re stronger in your mind, and you can face any challenge that life throws at you.
Now almost 3 years post treatment I am ready to give back. To connect with Dana Farber from a place of strength and gratitude, instead of fear and uncertainty. I want to be a resource for the rising number of women diagnosed with breast cancer. To remind them that there is “the other side” and that they’ll get there, and to help share the tools and knowledge that enabled me to be in this place today.