Five years. FIVE. YEARS! 🎉
This month marks my 5-year milestone of completing adjuvant endocrine therapy. I met with my oncologist today to discuss next steps. We’ve completed standard therapy but due to my age at diagnosis, high risk of recurrence, and current data, we agreed on a plan moving forward.
Five years ago, the thought of making it to this point filled me with overwhelming dread. Five years seemed incredibly far away, and with the whirlwind of diagnosis at 18 weeks pregnant to surgery to chemo to induction to radiation to the end of active treatment at four months postpartum, I hadn’t had much of a chance to sit with my feelings and truly understand what survivorship meant. I didn’t realize that the 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 me would cease to exist and how hard it would be to reconcile with the 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 me. I didn’t fully grasp how much the side effects of the meds and injections would impact my day to day, that some of the smallest tasks like opening a jar or getting up from the floor would leave me frustrated and in tears. I naively thought that mammograms and screenings each year would become easier, that waiting for results wouldn’t quite literally paralyze me. I definitely didn’t know how incredibly lonely it could feel at times.
I look back now and acknowledge that I did what I always do when something terrifies me: I kept going. Not a day goes by where the thought of cancer coming back hasn’t come – it lingers, but doesn’t permeate. I haven’t moved on from it, it’s that I accept it as part of my journey now, and choose to share it (because even when it feels lonely, I do know that I’m not alone).
Yes, a lot can happen in five years. I finished my masters. We made it through a pandemic. Our newborn is about to start Kindergarten! I gained three nephews and at the same time, we heartbreakingly lost three friends. I was laid off and started a different career path (exactly one year ago!). We celebrated, we grieved, we traveled, we slowed down (a little). And then earlier this summer, my father was diagnosed with cancer. Accompanying him to his first infusion felt both familiar and foreign, now that I’m on the “other side.” Oh, the fragility of life.
What choice did I have really, then to move forward? To embrace the quiet suffering, the wrath and ugliness that cancer leaves behind? To not allow the fear to overtake me and instead to walk alongside it? I choose this life, both heavy and light.
So as with every milestone, I celebrated it – with a large coffee, listening to new music, and a sushi feast with my family. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that it’s always been about #thelittlethings. 🎀 #breastcancer #survivor #fiveyears
