I Beat Cancer Twice—Then Found Out I Had Stage 4 Breast Cancer

My cancer story is a bit of a winding tale. Some people are diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer de novo, meaning they didn’t learn of their cancer when it was at an earlier stage, but not me. When I was 22, I beat Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes. Then, when I was 27, I found out I had stage 1 breast cancer. I beat the breast cancer, too, but then, when I was 31, it became metastatic breast cancer (MBC), or stage 4.

I am now 36 years old and live in Georgia with my husband, Jesse, and our three dogs: Charlie, Lola, and Obi-Wan. Before I was diagnosed with MBC in November 2020, I’d told my breast cancer doctor that I didn’t quite feel right. I was experiencing shortness of breath with even the slightest change in position, like when I laid down to go to bed. Even though this was bothering me, my doctor told me not to worry about it and said I didn’t need a PET scan, which is an imaging test used to assess conditions like cancer. Many health care providers have told me to avoid scans over the years, saying, “You’re just gonna see things that aren’t there and worry about them.” But I’d rather know than not know. My breast cancer doctor also said I shouldn’t waste my money, but I was like, “Well, I have insurance, so I’m going to do what I can manage.” It felt like she was almost demanding I not get checked out. I was in an exam room under this pink napkin, practically butt naked, but I sat straight up and told her, “I’m not leaving here until some type of imaging is scheduled.” I didn’t know what was going on with me, but I knew I wasn’t well.

Ultimately, she sent me for a bone and CT scan. Immediately after she called and said I needed a PET scan. I was like, “Are you kidding me?” So I got the scan, and then she was like, “You need a lung biopsy.” At that point she was convinced my Hodgkin’s lymphoma must be coming back, not that my issues were in any way related to breast cancer. She told me to research lymphoma specialists. Then she called again. The first thing she said was, “I haven’t been burned many times in my career, but this is one of them.” I asked what that meant. She responded, “Well, you have metastatic breast cancer to the lung and mediastinal lymph nodes.”