While in her early 30s, Christine discovered a lump under her left arm and breast area, eventually leading to a stage 3 triple-positive breast cancer diagnosis. Committed to her healing journey, she embarked on a comprehensive treatment plan that included chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and a lumpectomy procedure.

Throughout her breast cancer experience, Christine faced challenging decisions regarding family planning, seeking guidance from her dedicated healthcare team. She drew strength from the support of her loved ones, finding comfort in their presence and encouragement.

Christine faced the difficult decision of preserving her fertility before starting cancer treatment. Learning that chemotherapy could potentially render her infertile, she opted for embryo freezing to safeguard her chances of having children in the future.

Despite the emotional challenges and time constraints, Christine underwent the fertility treatment process and successfully obtained two healthy embryos. She insisted on completing the embryo transfers before starting chemotherapy, balancing the urgency of her cancer treatment. Within a month, she underwent fertility treatments and began chemotherapy, demonstrating remarkable resilience and determination.

Transitioning from fertility preservation to treatment, Christine embarked on a five-month journey to combat her breast cancer. Her treatment plan consisted of AC-T chemotherapy followed by paclitaxel. Initially hesitant about chemotherapy, she underwent a powerful shift in perspective, viewing it as essential for her survival.

In parallel with conventional treatment, Christine also incorporated integrative therapy for additional support. Despite the challenges of hair loss and physical side effects, she showed remarkable resilience, facing the mental and emotional struggle of redefining her identity and embracing her new path toward healing.

In addition to Christine’s narrative, The Patient Story offers a diverse collection of breast cancer stories. These empowering stories provide real-life experiences valuable insights and perspectives on symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment options for cancer.

Pre-diagnosis

Initial symptoms

I was feeling quite tired, stressed, [and] pale. I was told by quite a few people that I looked quite pale. I just chalked it up to the stress of COVID and being at home. I didn’t really think much of it, to be honest. But I did find my anxiety was rising and didn’t feel very well overall.

When I was laying on my side, I noticed that the tissue in my breast had been pulled straight while the rest of the tissue was falling to the side. That was really [the] only major tip-off that told me that there was something wrong.

You could see a very distinct divot in that spot. Instantly, I felt my breast and realized that there was a very large, very hard, very stationary lump.

I wasn’t doing self-breast checks. Of course, we should be doing them, but I was so young that I thought, There was no reason for me to do this.

Reaction to feeling a lump on the breast

As soon as I felt the lump, I knew that it wasn’t benign. It was too large. It was too hard. It was too stationary. I knew nothing about cancer because of my age. I had never researched it or thought about it, but I just knew that it was cancer.

I’m up all night trying not to worry my husband. I’m staring at the ceiling, crying, and just thinking, What’s my husband’s life going to be like without me? How am I going to say goodbye to my parents? What’s going to happen here? These dark thoughts really intruded my mind for eight hours. I didn’t sleep a wink.

Breast ultrasound and mammogram

Two days later, I was there for the mammogram and ultrasound. The tech started off with the ultrasound and said, “We need to do a mammogram.” 

We did the mammogram. The tech came in and in a very somber voice, he said, “This isn’t benign,” and that’s really all he could say.

I remember the whole room zoning in on his mouth. I could see him speaking. Everything went fuzzy. I felt out of [my] body at that moment. I don’t recall what he said after, “It isn’t benign.”

I’m grateful that she decided to go forward with these tests. I really was very fortunate.

Getting the test results

The biopsy was taken with an MRI the next day. The MRI took about two weeks to come in and the biopsy took about three/four weeks so you can imagine that period of time was absolute torture.

We’ve got all these blood tests, MRIs, biopsies, waiting, unsureness, and everything. Telling your family that you don’t really know what’s wrong, but something’s bad.

The MRI results came back as a stage 3 breast cancer tumor coming in at nearly 8 cm with at least two lymph nodes involved from what they could see from the scan, [with a] suspicion of four.

Reaction to the test results

I was unaware of what all of that meant. I spent a disgusting amount of time on Google learning what BI-RADS means, what stage 3 means, do people survive that, and all these types of things.

I did feel somewhat left in the dark in that way. The doctors were doing their best. They were moving as quickly as they could, but they were forgetting to tell me what it means.

Talking about fertility preservation options with your spouse

We were very comfortable [doing] that right away. It was a do-or-die sort of situation. We knew that we had a choice. Do we want to try to have our own babies? The answer was yes.

I was a little leery of the process because there’s estrogen involved. I had estrogen-positive cancer, but nothing was going to stand between me and my future babies. The decision was made and we decided to move forward with it.

Talking with my husband was difficult. We both really wanted to just live normally. We didn’t want to be facing cancer. We wanted to be having babies with our friends and with our families.

My friends and families are living their lives. They’re starting their careers. They’re having babies. And I’m facing this. It did feel unfair to both of us. It was a difficult conversation.

Treatment

AC-T chemotherapy

I did two months of heavy-duty chemo called AC-T, which is doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide. We did that for four rounds and then we did 12 rounds of paclitaxel every week. Altogether, it was a five-month treatment plan.

Reframing personal view of chemotherapy

It was difficult for me to wrap my brain around [it]. You don’t know until you’re faced with it.

I truly believed if I was diagnosed [with] cancer, I would never touch poison with a 10-foot pole. I would leave, go someplace where I never ate sugar again, live with the monks, and heal myself. That’s what I believed that I would do.

Now you’re facing this diagnosis and the doctor says to you, “If you do what I tell you, you’ll live. But if you don’t, you’ll die.” That was such a paradigm shift for me.

I had a difficult time feeling that this was the best way. I tried my very best to reframe what I had previously said was poison. I tried to reframe it as medicine. I did lots of meditation because that spoke to me and that’s really who I am as a person.

The experience of going through chemotherapy

Undergoing chemo was difficult, but there were breaks and I really appreciated that. You’d go in, have this really difficult experience for days, and then have a little bit of a break and a piece of normalcy. That really helped me a lot.

Between chemo, radiation, and surgery, the most difficult part of my journey was chemotherapy. The combination of losing your hair, puffing up because of steroids, [and] gaining weight because of the steroids really robs you of this femininity that we as females attach to.

Side effects of chemotherapy

One of the more difficult parts of my journey was [the] loss of hair, which is crazy but also not crazy because [as] women, we identify with that. I would say it felt lonely, it felt difficult at times, and no one could truly understand how hard this was for me mentally.

They could see that I was physically ill, nauseous, and tired. They could see that I looked pale. No one could truly tell what was more difficult, which was breaking down paradigms — fear of poison, fear of losing my hair, fear of long-term side effects, and who I really was now. That was probably the harder part.

I had done a lot of research on the differences between mastectomy and lumpectomy, whether or not it is more helpful, and the grief stage that a lot of women go through in the loss of their breasts.

I already lost my hair and body size, and I knew the grief that that was giving me so I opted for a lumpectomy because I wasn’t willing to add that on.

Lumpectomy vs. mastectomy

A mastectomy, whether unilateral or bilateral, is where you remove one or both of your breasts. All of the tissue is removed. Some people get reconstruction. They’ll have expanders. There [are] different ways that people can re-enhance their chest again.

The difficult part is no nipples present unless they opt for that surgery. There can also be a loss of sensation, loss of equilibrium, [and] things like that.

It’s up to the woman what feels right for her. I don’t discourage a mastectomy [from] anybody who decides that that’s what’s right for them. But I opted for the lumpectomy because the lumpectomy was removing just the tumor.

In my case, I was lucky. I didn’t have to nick or disturb the nipples in any way. I was able to just remove the tumor. Because it was only 1.2 cm, I was left with a very small divot, which filled in with fat over [the] years. I have a very large scar, but I still have my breasts exactly as they are.

It was interesting. While I was in the process, I felt like, “I can do this.” I felt almost invigorated in a lot of ways and very positive.

But afterward, in the survivorship role, I found myself very low, very disconnected from myself and my body. I felt depressed really in a lot of ways. All of that trauma came flooding back. I didn’t expect it, but mentally, the survivorship stage was more difficult than the journey itself mentally.

Words of advice

When you’re choosing your treatment path, it truly is a difficult road. You need to be able to persevere from what you feel is right for you because it’s going to be hard.

If you align your treatment plan in a way that speaks to you, you can always draw from that and say, “I’m doing my best with what I know.” On those difficult moments, you have something to look back on and say, “I was true to me.”

Cancer teaches you a few things. It teaches you how to be self-compassionate because you have to be. It teaches you how to ask and allow people to help you because you have to.

It can be the beginning of something beautiful. I know that, for me, as difficult and ugly as cancer was, there was still so much beauty. And what that beauty was is that I’ve become 100% present in my life.

I don’t fear anything anymore because I know what fear really looks like. I’ve become completely unapologetic about who I am and what I need.

Cancer is not inherently a blessing, but I believe that you can make a choice to make this trauma mean something to you and bring you into the type of person that you’ve always wanted to be.