Today I am 38 years old and have been in menopause for four years, but there are no signs of active disease in my body. I still take the same medications because they still work. In the cancer world, treatment plans are called “treatment lines.” You have a first line, a second line, a third line, etc. When one of them stops working, you move on to the “next line”; they usually become more toxic and less tolerated. I have been so lucky that I have continued to receive first line treatment for five and a half years now. My quality of life is excellent.
I also had breast reconstruction on the mastectomy side, choosing a procedure called a DIEP flap, which uses the patient's tissue (rather than an implant) after a procedure similar to a tummy tuck. The recovery was long, but I am grateful and pleased with the results.
Before all this happened, I definitely took life and relationships for granted. Now every birthday and every holiday is worth celebrating. Every little milestone my kids reach and the fact that I'm here to witness them makes the simple moments doubly precious. Now that I am living with metastatic breast cancer, I realize how lucky I am to be here and experience all of this.
Our children are now 15, 12 and 5 years old. I witnessed important events that, statistically, I should not have been here for. My son started high school (he's now a sophomore) and started dating. My oldest daughter is in seventh grade, plays soccer, and just joined a musical theater company. And my youngest, who was only a few weeks old when I was first diagnosed, started kindergarten. I still hope to be here when my kids graduate from college and maybe do more research beyond this.
Meanwhile, my family went to Costa Rica. We explored the jungle and went scuba diving and zip lining for the first time. My husband and I traveled to Paris and Portugal. In Paris, we saw the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, rode scooters around the city, and ate a ridiculous amount of baked goods. In Portugal we kayaked in and around sea caves and walked through castles. We're heading to Greece next month!
