Metastatic Breast Cancer Taught Me to Live In the Moment, With Gratitude

Cancer split my world into two distinct parts: my pre-metastatic breast cancer life and my post-metastatic breast cancer life.

Pre-metastatic breast cancer I was very active. I was into yoga, running, pilates—whatever was on-trend in the moment. I work in technology, but I also ran a Bollywood dance school with my girlfriends. I’d just finished breastfeeding my second son, and I was in the best shape of my life when I found a lump in my right breast.

My gynecologist said she didn’t think it was anything to worry about, but she told me to come in for a checkup anyway. It turns out, it was breast cancer—HER2-negative, ER- and PR-positive ductal carcinoma to be specific. When a PET scan found that the cancer had spread to my liver, my diagnosis was changed from stage II to stage IV.

Many people think breast cancer is something you beat with chemotherapy and a mastectomy—and it can be, if it’s caught early enough, in stages 0 to III. It’s a terrible thing, but you live. But there’s no “beating” stage IV breast cancer, which is also known as metastatic breast cancer. There is no cure. It’s something I’ll have for the rest of my life.

After I was handed a stage IV breast cancer diagnosis, I felt like I’d been given a death sentence. I spiraled as my mind started playing games on me. Why did I get it? What did I do wrong? Was it the food I was eating? Was I not exercising enough? Was I working too hard? I started to question everything; I felt like I had caused the cancer.

I filtered our water, went vegan, only bought organic food, changed detergents, and stopped using microwaves. Unsurprisingly, having a busy career and two kids and making all our meals from scratch only stressed me out further.

I was initially frustrated with my oncologist because I felt I wasn’t being given a solution. What I wanted to hear was, “Take this and then you’re done. Everything will be normal and your life will go back to how it used to be.” But that’s not how stage IV breast cancer treatment works.

That was lesson No. 1: In metastatic breast cancer, as in life, there’s only so much you can plan. It’s waiting and watching. For some people, one drug might work for years; for others, the very same drug will work for a few months—or not at all. My first treatment worked for 18 months, and then I moved on to another and then another. I’ve been on nine treatments over the last five years. I’m so grateful that I get to try these treatments, and that research is happening so new treatments are being introduced. For a while, every time a treatment stopped working, I felt like I was watching my life run out. At some point, though, something changed. I stopped asking “why”—Why me? Why now?—and started asking how I could change myself or my situation in order to find joy.

This post was originally published on this site