Six months, three surgeries & everything I learned about fear, early detection & moving forward.

Six months ago, I turned 40. I woke up in the French Alps, had lunch in Switzerland, and finished the day as my kids sang me happy birthday under the Eiffel Tower.

17 days later, after my first routine mammogram, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

No lump. Zero symptoms. So many questions.

Now, three surgeries later, I am relieved to share that I have no evidence of disease (NED, in the cancer world).

You may not have noticed anything was wrong. Life went on as cancer became a daily part of mine. There were sleepless nights, tears, countless appointments & SO much waiting. Waiting to find out if I would be OK. Waiting for the finish line to stop moving.

But through it all, there was also so much joy.

I couldn’t have guessed in those early days how much genuine happiness, contentment & love I would feel over these six months. Life didn’t stop when I got cancer. I worked. I parented. I traveled. I went to games. I saw friends. I celebrated new babies and I danced at weddings. I laughed. I had some really good times.

Cancer was happening. But so was my life.

I’ve struggled with how much of this to share publicly. Vulnerability is hard for me & I’ve worried that cancer would define me, change how people see me or somehow become the most interesting thing about me. It isn’t.

And I refuse to be embarrassed by it. Although sometimes, if I’m being honest, I am anyway.

But keeping something this big private started to feel strange too. So eventually, I started writing.

And once I started, it kind of poured out of me.

What began as a short Instagram caption turned into this very long story. Writing it down has been incredibly cathartic. I think I needed somewhere to put the last six months, to mark what happened & give myself permission to move forward.

And now, halfway through 40 and at the end of active treatment, I’m finally ready to tell the whole story.

No lump. No symptoms.

Just a few months before turning 40, my OBGYN, Dr. Tara Abraham, recommended I do testing to better understand my breast cancer risk. Turns out, I had an elevated risk even though I don’t carry one of the known gene mutations like BRCA.

Because I knew that, I was especially motivated to schedule my first mammogram promptly after turning 40. I think all the time about what might have happened if I’d waited (unlikely given my Type A tendencies, but life gets busy).

I had ZERO symptoms. They couldn’t even feel the lump after they knew exactly where it was, and what ultimately turned out to be cancer was subtle on my mammogram. I’m so glad I knew about my risk & did the scan on time.

A week after my first mammogram, I went back because they saw some asymmetry they didn’t like. Five mammograms, two ultrasounds & one biopsy later, the doctor told me they had found a mass in my right breast. I immediately shattered.

I’m not a big crier, especially in public, so completely falling apart with that doctor was my first taste of just how vulnerable this experience was going to make me feel.

She told me there were other possible explanations, but something about the way she explained it, deep down, I already knew it was cancer.

This was the beginning of the long waiting game, but also a new sense of being alone that I had never really felt before.

Do I have cancer? Will I be OK? Is this just routine? Should I tell anyone yet?

I took this picture while trying to process it all. I didn’t have any answers to give myself, let alone anyone else, but I also couldn’t stand feeling so alone with all of these questions rattling around my head so I did eventually text a couple of close friends to let them know this was happening.

I didn’t know it then, but I would spend the next few months waiting for one result after another, each one answering one question & usually creating a few more.

And then my phone lit up.

The next night, I had dinner plans with a friend to celebrate my birthday. I’d spent the entire day staring at my phone, willing it to ring so someone could tell me I didn’t have cancer. I was nervous about going out to celebrate, but I wanted & needed the distraction. So I got dressed & went to dinner.

I tried not to, but I kept checking my phone. Right after we ordered, I got a MyChart notification.

My biopsy results were in.

I debated waiting until I got home, but I needed to know.

I opened the report & everything blurred when I saw the word “carcinoma.” The rest might as well have been another language.

I put it into ChatGPT.

There it was.

I had breast cancer.

I texted Doug. Ate maybe three bites. Finished my wine. Hugged my friend. Got into an Uber & called my parents.

And then I got home and went to bed.

At 2 AM, I woke up. At 4 AM, I gave up on trying to fall back asleep and read on my Kindle. By 6 AM, I was crying on the phone to my sister.

Then I dried my tears. Woke up the boys, got them ready for school & dropped them off. Then I got to work on beating cancer.

The breast center initially offered me an appointment more than a week away. That felt completely impossible, so I started calling. My OBGYN pulled some strings & by later that morning, I was sitting in front of a breast surgeon.

That afternoon, I was back on the sidelines at soccer & lacrosse practice, making small talk with other parents.

I remember looking around and thinking: How can they not tell that my life today changed forever? How am I talking about vacations and playing time when I have breast cancer?

Life just kept going.

The most out of control I’ve ever felt

The first few weeks were a crash course in a language I never wanted to learn.

Tumor size. Lymph nodes. ER. PR. HER2. Triple negative. FISH testing. Margins. DCIS. Lumpectomy. Mastectomy. Radiation. Chemo. Oncotype.

I met with four surgeons.

The surgeon I met with the day after my diagnosis drew me a chart of all the possible treatment paths.

I’d walked into that appointment still comforting myself with what the doctor who did my biopsy had told me: the tumor looked really small & I was going to be OK.

Then she drew me a crazy looking chart with all of the different possible outcomes and plans, and suddenly nothing felt quite so simple.

Every line was a different path, and we still needed so many answers before we knew which one was mine.

How big was the tumor really? Was there anything else the mammogram hadn’t seen? What type of breast cancer did I have? Had it spread? Would I get a lumpectomy or mastectomy? Would I need radiation or chemo? Before or after surgery?

I love information & I love planning, but I was completely overwhelmed by that piece of paper. Weirdly, it also helped a bit too.

I finally had a map, even if I still had absolutely no idea where I was going.

For a serial planner, I had been feeling completely out of control.

So I controlled the things I could.

I called. And called. And called some more.

I worked every connection I had. If someone told me the next available appointment was in two weeks, I didn’t stop trying for sooner.

In the first week after my diagnosis, I hated weekends because it meant nothing was happening. As someone who works weekends just to sell a house, it was baffling to me that weekends meant a full stop in forward motion in the world of cancer. But a couple of weeks later, I couldn’t wait for the weekend because it meant I could stop making calls, and answering them, for two days.

Getting appointments sooner felt like one of the only things I could actually control. If I could just move everything along fast enough, maybe I could pretend this whole cancer thing wasn’t really happening. It didn’t quite work that way.

Eventually, I got my MRI appointment moved up. Walking in for that appointment was one of the first times I thought: wow. I really feel like a cancer patient now.

I was terrified they were going to tell me the tumor was much bigger than we thought. Or that there were other tumors. Or that it had spread to my lymph nodes.

The tech saw how panicked I was and promised she’d personally make sure my scans were reviewed that day.

She kept her word.

Small kindnesses throughout this process meant so much to me.

Instead of the news I was terrified of, I got what counted in my scary new world as good news: the tumor was less than a centimeter, there was no evidence of lymph node involvement & they didn’t see additional tumors.

Basically, nothing looked worse than we already knew it was.

I was so relieved.

And then I waited for the next answer.

The weirdest good news of my life

I eventually learned my cancer was hormone-receptor-positive, but my HER2 result was borderline.

That meant more testing.

HER2-negative was what I was crossing my fingers for. It had highly successful treatment options & didn’t automatically mean chemotherapy.

One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and checked my phone, which I never do. I just had a feeling.

The result was there.

HER2 negative.

I screamed (a good one).

I woke Doug up.

I texted my family.

And then I went back to sleep very slightly less terrified and relieved that now chemo was only a maybe, not a must.

Around this time, I read Amanda Peet’s New Yorker essay about her own breast cancer diagnosis, which was remarkably similar to mine. Her doctor had described the different types of breast cancer as dogs, with poodles on one end of the spectrum & pit bulls on the other.

When her results came back ER/PR+, HER2-negative, like mine, her doctor told her: “All poodle features!”

Then Amanda wrote, “I was happier than I’d been pre-diagnosis, when I was just a regular person who didn’t have cancer.”

I knew exactly what she meant.

How completely bizarre to be this happy about the particular type of cancer I had.

But I was.

The next morning I took a selfie with Wesley at one of Brooks’ lacrosse games. I couldn’t stop smiling. For the first time since my diagnosis, the smile was completely genuine.

Telling the boys

Spring break fell at exactly the right time.

By the time we left, I had all the information I could have before surgery & a surgery date scheduled for two days after we got home.

I was on strict doctor’s orders to relax & enjoy the Bahamas. You really didn’t need to tell me twice.

For the first time in weeks, there were no calls to make, appointments to schedule or results to wait for.

We had the BEST time.

I laughed. I sat in the sun. I rode water slides. I let the kids get my hair wet (iykyk). I savored every single moment.

Except there was still one thing I needed to do.

Tell the boys.

This was one of the things giving me the most anxiety. I didn’t want to scare them or have cancer suddenly change how safe their world felt. More than anything, I wanted them to know I was going to be OK. But keeping it from them felt nearly impossible.

At our last dinner, a natural opening came up. So I took it.

I told them that when we got home, Mommy needed surgery, kind of like when Dad had surgery on his shoulder (although really, it was so different). I said had some cells the doctors needed to take out or they would turn into cancer. I was going to be okay, but they needed to be a little gentle with me while I recovered.

And they basically said: “OK. Can I have your phone now?”

At first I selfishly thought, WAIT, why aren’t they concerned?

And then I realized what their reaction meant.

They felt safe. They believed I was going to be okay. That was all they needed to know.

We’ve told them more as time has gone on, including that I had breast cancer. But for that first conversation, it was just right.

LET’S. GO. Cancer is out. I’m done with surgery.

On the last day of March, 19 days after my diagnosis, it was time for surgery. Mostly, I was just so ready.

I had elected to have a lumpectomy. The tumor was small, there wasn’t expected to be much if any cosmetic impact & it was the least invasive option.

After weeks of waiting for results, making calls, researching, interviewing doctors & trying to figure out what came next, we were finally doing something.

I wanted it out of my body.

I was weirdly excited. I sent selfies to friends and family right up until surgery.

When I woke up, the first thing I wanted everyone to know was: IT’S OUT!!!

My texts made absolutely no sense because I was drugged out of my mind. But I was happy.

Then came more good news: the lymph node they’d removed showed no cancer.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

And then, naturally, almost immediately started waiting again for the next result.

Until I wasn’t.

A week after surgery, my surgeon told me she’d been verbally told everything looked good.

Tumor out. Margins clear.

I was done with surgery!

Until I wasn’t.

A few days later, I was at a second showing for one of my listings when my phone rang.

The margins around the invasive tumor were clear, but there was extensive DCIS that hadn’t shown up on my scans. They weren’t comfortable on those margins.

My surgeon wanted to go back in. We scheduled my second surgery for the following week, a day after Brooks’ birthday.

I was gutted and confused.

I kept showing the house anyway. I stepped into another room when I could, wiped away tears, got a grip, pasted the smile back on & kept going. (They bought the house.)

In hindsight, that showing is a pretty perfect summary of those months: take a minute to feel it, pull myself together, figure out the next step & just keep going.

This was probably my lowest point aside from the initial diagnosis.

I wasn’t scared of another surgery.

I was just scared, period.

Why hadn’t all of this shown up on my scans? Had I made the wrong decision choosing a lumpectomy? What else had we missed?

The second surgery gave us the reassurance I desperately needed: clear margins.

I was cancer-free.

But something had changed.

They’d taken a lot more tissue & I could see the difference in my body.

More importantly, I didn’t feel the same confidence I had before that I made the right choice with my surgery. Could I live with that uncertainty?

Turns out, being cancer-free wasn’t quite the finish line I thought it would be.

And then I changed the plan

The week after my second surgery, I met with my surgeon, medical oncologist & radiation oncologist.

At those appointments, I finally got the news I’d been anxiously waiting for since diagnosis: I didn’t need chemo.

A few weeks earlier, that was the thing I had been most afraid of. And somehow this enormous piece of good news almost felt like a footnote. My anxiety had already moved on.

Why hadn’t the scans picked everything up?

Turns out I had very dense breast tissue which would make future scans difficult.

All three doctors told me essentially the same thing: a mastectomy was not medically necessary, but given everything we now knew, it was a completely reasonable choice.

It was up to me.

I knew myself. If this cancer ever came back, or if there was more we hadn’t found, I knew I would never forgive myself for not taking every possible step I could to reduce my risk.

So, I knew.

I didn’t WANT a mastectomy. But it was the right decision for me.

And then I cried. A lot.

But they weren’t sad tears. They were tears of relief.

I’d been in such a dark hole since finding out I needed the second surgery, terrified I was making the wrong decisions. Suddenly, all that pent-up anxiety & fear started pouring out of me. I had a plan I believed in again.

A few hours later, I got on a plane and walked into my friend’s 40th bday party. A friend came up to me and said:

“I hear we need to give the girls a good send-off tonight.”

I had just made one of the biggest & most emotionally draining decisions of my life.

And it felt like something worth celebrating, not mourning.

All of my friends absolutely delivered that night. I love that someone captured this moment, because I can feel how I felt in that moment when I look at it.

Lighter. Supported. Seen. Happy. Free. Alive.

So we celebrated. 🥂

Another layer of protection

Cancer treatment doesn’t exactly end when the cancer is gone.

I started preventative treatment: a daily pill & a monthly injection to help reduce the risk of it ever coming back.

The first time I showed up for my injection, I didn’t realize I’d be getting it in the infusion center, surrounded mostly by people there for chemotherapy.

I looked around and it hit me hard.

I was the youngest by decades. I felt pretty sorry for myself. Why was this happening to me?

And then I looked around again.

I was there for a simple shot, surrounded by people going through so much more.

One of the strangest things about cancer is how incredibly lucky & incredibly unlucky you can feel at exactly the same time.

I’ll likely be on some version of these medications for the next 5–10 years.

People sometimes look shocked or even a little sad for me when I tell them that.

I feel differently.

I’m THRILLED these medicines exist.

Anything I can do to keep me healthy is an enthusiastic yes for me.

Every morning when I take my pill, I smile.

Another dose down. Another layer of protection added.

The big day 

There were two months between surgeries #2 and #3.

Life almost felt normal again.

Fewer cancer appointments. Work. Kids. Summer. Exercise. Routine. Fun.

Most importantly, I had a plan I believed in.

Ironically, I spent a decent amount of those two months worrying about how anxious I was going to be when surgery day came.

The fact that I was anxious about how anxious I might be was a pretty good clue that it was time to start the anti-anxiety medication I’d been considering.

But I digress…

When surgery day finally came, I wasn’t nervous.

I got through the day pretending I was there for a regular “mommy makeover” & that Justin Timberlake was autographing my chest instead of my breast surgeon initialing the surgery site.

It’s all in the branding, right?

I knew I might not love how my body looked or felt afterward.

I’d always joked about wanting new boobs, but really, I’d never actually wanted them. Certainly not like this.

I didn’t know exactly how reconstruction would turn out or even whether they’d be able to do it immediately. (They did.)

And that day, not knowing how I would wake up and what I would look like was the hardest part.

But I knew I’d made the right choice. Whatever came with it.

I don’t want to miss any of it

The boys were amazing.

Before I came home, they created my recovery zone: pillows, blankets, chargers, a heating pad & little notes everywhere.

They checked on me constantly. They were gentle & sweet with me through it all.

They even remembered not to jump on me. Mostly!

I spent a lot more time on the couch than I’m used to over these months, but I was determined to get back to their activities as quickly as I could after every surgery.

Partly because I didn’t want cancer or my recovery to disrupt their lives.

But also because missing time with my kids was what scared me most from the beginning.

I didn’t need cancer to teach me how much I loved being their mom. I just wanted more of our regular life.

Games. Drop-offs. Backyard soccer & lacrosse. Basketball in the driveway. Couch snuggles. Bedtime. Driving them all over the freaking place.

I really don’t want to miss any of it.

People really show up.

And then there were all of you.

Food. Flowers. Books. Calls. Texts. Check-ins. Distractions. Laughs. Emotional support pickles.

People let me talk about cancer when I wanted to & didn’t force it when I didn’t.

You let me work. Parent. Laugh. Go out. Be ridiculous.

You let me feel like me.

And then there were women who had been through breast cancer before me.

I’m not naming anyone because I don’t know how public everyone is about their own story. But you know who you are.

You answered questions. Shared experiences. Checked on me. Talked me off ledges. Gave me product recommendations, or actual products. And understood things that only someone who had been through it really could.

There was something incredibly comforting about not needing to explain. You just got it.

And then there were the people who kept my actual life moving when I couldn’t.

Doug was there for all of it. He came to appointments with me, listened to me talk through the same decisions approximately 400 times, took over bedtime when getting in & out of bed was physically hard, let me swap out most of our household products and went on my four walks a day with me when walking was basically the only exercise I was allowed to do. I couldn’t have done it without him.

My family showed up in all the different ways I needed them to. Amanda came down before my first surgery when I needed the emotional support. My dad came over just to sit with me when I was losing my mind staring at the same four walls. My uncle came up from Florida to help with the boys and cook.

My mom & my team kept the business moving. They took care of my clients, covered for me through appointments, surgeries & recovery, and gave me the time I needed to recover physically. They also gave me the space I needed to work on the emotional healing too.

I think that’s what all of my people did.  You all protected the normal life I was fighting so hard to keep.

The finish line that kept moving

For months, I was racing toward a finish line.

Just get the answers. Get through surgery. Get the results. Get through another surgery. Get the cancer out. Adapt to the meds. Make the decision. Change your body. Get reconstruction. Heal. Get the drains out. Wear normal clothes. Don’t be a cancer patient. Be normal again!

Except the finish line kept moving.

Even after my mastectomy, I’ve had setbacks. I’m still healing. I may look back to normal, but I’m not there yet. I may still have more surgery ahead. I’ll be on medication for years. There will be follow-ups & more milestones & probably a lot more questions.

This story isn’t really over, but I’m still moving forward.

And so I’m realizing that maybe I don’t need a finish line. Maybe what I’ve been searching for is a transition.

The point isn’t to keep racing toward whatever comes next. It’s to slow down, soak up everything along the way & celebrate every fucking milestone.

And for now, I think that’s enough.

The word I’m still trying on

The word “survivor” still doesn’t quite feel like it fits me yet.

I want so badly to shift from being a patient into whatever comes next.

But survivor still feels a little premature.

Unfinished.

Like maybe I shouldn’t say it too loudly and jinx something.

I’m working on it though.

On Mother’s Day weekend, not quite two months after my diagnosis, we’d just left one of Brooks’ lacrosse games and stopped to pick up dinner when we happened upon the angel wings.

It was my first time really seeing the words, “for those battling cancer,” and realizing, that was me. I was fighting.

I knew I wanted a picture and that I wanted the boys standing there with me. I don’t know that I would have had the courage to stand under those wings by myself.

Standing between them, though, I felt proud. Strong. Empowered.

Maybe they helped me try the word survivor on a little bit.

I definitely wasn’t ready for it then. I was still in the middle of it. I’m not entirely sure I’m ready now.

But I know how incredibly lucky I am to be one.

What I want to do with all of this

I’ve learned more about breast cancer in six months than I ever wanted to know.

Some of it is medical. Some of it is practical. And some of it has completely changed what I notice now.

One of the biggest things I can’t stop thinking about is access. Or rather, lack of it.

I know how incredibly fortunate I was. I had amazing doctors. Friends & family with connections. Access to incredible medical care. I had the time, resources & frankly the personality to make 500 phone calls until I got what I needed.

Not everyone has that.

I thought constantly about the woman who lives hours from the right doctor. Who can’t take off work for another appointment. Who doesn’t have childcare or someone to drive her home after surgery. Who doesn’t have someone to call when the next available appointment is weeks away. Who has to worry about whether she can afford the care she needs on top of everything else.

Going through cancer is hard enough.

I can’t imagine doing it with those barriers too.

I don’t know exactly what helping change that looks like yet. But I know I want to try. 

I also want to do my part to help with breast cancer research.

One of my doctors told me that if I’d been diagnosed 10 years ago, the conversations about my treatment & prognosis would have looked very different.

I think about that all the time. It’s another example of feeling two things simultaneously: incredibly grateful for the advances that have been made & what they mean for me, but also scared to think about what this might have looked like if I’d been diagnosed at 30.

Diagnoses for women in their 30s & 40s are on the rise. And 1 in 8 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime.

1 in fucking 8.

Sit with that for a second. Think about how many women you know & do the math.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve already had 2 women reach out to tell me they’ve been diagnosed too.

Research has already changed outcomes & treatment dramatically. But metastatic breast cancer still has no cure.

The research happening right now could literally save my life one day, and I don’t say that lightly.

It could also save your mom. Your sister. Your friend. Your daughter. Your wife.

Or one day, it could save you.

I certainly can’t solve this problem on my own. But I can help be a part of the solution.

So I’m starting somewhere.

I’ve created a fundraising page for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. I don’t have a fancy fundraiser planned yet. I think I still need a little distance. But if you’d like to donate in the meantime, I’d be incredibly grateful.

And if you have an idea for how we can raise some serious money, I’m all ears.

Also…

If anyone within my six degrees ever finds herself navigating this diagnosis, call me. Even if we’ve never met.

I want to be a resource, a sounding board, the person you can ask the weird question, or just someone who gets it.

The women who did that for me made a huge difference and I intend to pay that forward.

And please. 

Understand your own risk. Ask questions. Advocate for yourself.

If just one woman books the mammogram she’s been putting off because I shared this, I’ll be so glad I did.

I had no lump. No symptoms. I felt completely healthy.

Early detection matters.

Act Two

Weirdly, even though I had breast cancer, I feel healthier than ever.

Over the last six months, I’ve made changes to how I eat, how much I drink, what I put in & on my body, how I exercise & how I take care of myself emotionally.

None of those things guarantees anything. I know that better than most.

But there’s something empowering about focusing on the things I CAN control, taking better care of this body that has been through a lot & then getting on with living in it.

So where does all of this leave me?

Cancer didn’t completely change my perspective on life.

I already knew how lucky I was. I already knew what mattered to me.

If anything has changed, I care even more about the things that have always mattered & have a lot fewer fucks to give about the things that don’t.

I’m getting used to a new body. A new lifestyle. A new outlook. I’m learning to slow down, be present, give myself grace. To let go of what I can’t control & focus on what I can. To accept that it’s okay to need help & lean on the people I love. To be happy with myself instead of constantly searching for imperfections.

But I’m doubling down on the same approach to life I’ve always had: say yes, book the trip, celebrate little things, bring the kids, try the restaurant, go to the party, dance on the table. Have FUN!

I’ve always known life is precious. I just didn’t fully understand how fragile it could be.

I think I assumed, like most of us do, that there would always be more time.

And while I’ve always been pretty good at choosing now over someday, I’m a lot less willing to count on someday now.

Six months ago, I worried about turning 40. Aging.

About getting more wrinkles & gray hair.

Now? I’m just excited for the opportunity to earn them.

(Obviously, I’m not giving up my Botox & highlights though, let’s not get carried away!)

And as I’ve reflected on this last half turn around the sun, I keep coming back to a quote I came across in my journal just days after my diagnosis:

“Everyone has two lives, & the second starts when you realize you only have one.”

So here I am, ready to close this chapter and turn the page.

I’m still me. Still healing. Still a work in progress, in all the ways.

Still just really fucking happy to be here.

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