Have you ever been in a chapter of life so terrifying, you wake every morning feeling as if you’re on a rollercoaster making its first gravity-defying drop, leaving your stomach in your ears? A chapter so unbelievable, you want to run up to everyone you see and beg them to DO SOMETHING ALREADY to make this all better?

If you’ve ever heard the word “cancer” used in the same sentence as your name, you know what I describe.

Tough life milestones weren’t unfamiliar to me. Loss, past trauma, a decade of infertility capped off with a second-trimester miscarriage that caused my always-present anxiety and depression to explode. Through the years,I gained and lost a handle on my anxieties and fears, but for the past few years, that battle was most surely lost.

I knew this red-lining, frantic way of existing wasn’t sustainable, but I kept grinding the gears. I yearned for a way to heal, to get what I wanted out of life, but I didn’t know how. Fast forward to 2022. Cancer came to my doorstep. I felt in every cell of my being, it was game over for me.

I was wrong. It was just the beginning.

But if you told me this in July of 2022 when I was diagnosed, I would have shut you down as a rambling fool. How could cancer be the beginning of anything except destruction, doom and death? I found the lump myself after a shower, exactly two weeks to the day we were to embark on another frozen embryo transfer.  There it was, a small little lump in my right breast; I could see it and feel it. It popped out of nowhere. The world—cliched as it sounds—screeched to a halt. Iran out of the bathroom, woke up my husband and made him feel the lump. I began hyperventilating. I feared this exact scenario. It was as if I wrote out the screenplay unfolding before me, but in all the worst ways.

Things unfolded quickly after that: mammogram (looked clear and perfect), ultrasound (could see the mass I palpated easily), punch biopsy, then an agonizing week-long wait. Then, the phone call. My brain couldn’t understand what my doctor was saying, except she used the word “carcinoma.” Not cancer. It made me think I didn’t have anything *that* scary, because carcinoma was such a flowery, innocent word. I mean, it sounded like “hemangioma” or “lipoma,”things I didn’t think killed you. Even after my doctor asked me if I had anyone with me, I remember thinking “why would I need anyone with me because I have a fatty lump?”

About 10 seconds later, it clicked. And I couldn’t stop shaking.

I don’t remember too much from those early days. I think I shorted out. I recall being told I was the “best case scenario” diagnosis from my doctor. I remember meeting my new team at UCI, getting a second opinion atCity of Hope, finally telling my sister six weeks after diagnosis when I went in for a lumpectomy.

But I mostly remember going back to my surgeon for my post-op appointment and being told the original biopsy from the other hospital was wrong, and I actually had triple positive breast cancer. Which took my original plan of a quick lumpectomy, little to no radiation and possibly hormone blockers to multiple surgeries, three months of chemo, a year of targeted therapies, accelerated radiation protocols and aromatase inhibitors.And an indefinite hold on our plans to expand our family.  My surgeon tried to reassure me the original long-term prognosis actually improved with this new diagnosis since the medical avenues for Her2+ breast cancer are so phenomenally successful. But I could see in here yes above her ever-present mask that she wasn’t messing around.

“You’ve always told me you don’t want to die,” she said, sitting on the stool across from me. “This is how you avoid that. This is our window to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

How could I believe that? My body betrayed me, my biopsy lied to me, those stupid online breast cancer prediction tools tricked me into believing I had as much of a chance of getting cancer as I did winning the lottery. How could I trust a single thing in this world?

“So is this still a bump in the road,” I asked her through tears, not sure if I was looking for reassurance or if I was lashing out at herin anger.

“Yes, but it’s a bigger bump and a longer road,” she answered matter-of-factly.

I do not remember anything after that. It was as if I unplugged from reality. I honestly thought this was how things ended for me, and I did not want to be present for the slow fade into oblivion. I just wanted to check out and not feel the fear or see the oncoming train. Chemo caused my mom’s death a few years before (not cancer—she received adjuvant chemo after successful surgery) and hastened my dad’s passing from stage 4 glioblastoma.You can see why I thought I would follow in the family tradition.

To say I was terrified would be a laughable understatement.

But I signed the papers anyway allowing treatment to commence, namely because my husband begged me to. He had faith in this plan. He believed what my doctor said: I could be cured. I only believed I was doomed.

And never would I have believed such a devastating diagnosis could give me so much life—could save my life. But it has. And Do Cancer helped make that happen.

In the past, cancer plagued me. Or, more accurately, the fear of cancer plagued me. For years, it haunted me as my biggest nightmare. My parents died in part because of it. I had friends pass away from it. I got assaulted every October with reminders that my boobs were time bombs waiting to kill me. Cancer seemed to lurk around every corner in my world. When it eventually happened, I explosively shattered. The first time I went to the infusion center, my husband had to nearly carry me in, I was so paralyzed by the fear and trauma of it all. I spiraled, feeling myself slip further and further into depression and anxiety.

My surgeon spent nearly an hour with me one visit, right before chemo telling me this wasn’t the end of my life. She shared story after story of her patients who got past this and blossomed into these life-loving, risk-taking, gratitude-filled, purpose-driven people who only found their paths through cancer. Maybe some saw cancer as a “gift,” but not me.  No good could come of such cruelty and injustice. Right?

One day, trying to numb out on the couch by scrollingInstagram, I saw a reel from a fellow cancer patient. It contained the docancer.org logo, and a blurb about how this group provides resources.Something made me screenshot it. Later, when I went to the site, I thought for sure it involved nothing more than “free” workshops or trials, whetting people’s appetites so they’ll sign up, subscribe, pay for more. But something made me reach out anyway.

And that is when my life took another dramatic turn, but this time for the better.

Speaking to Do Cancer Co-Founder Brenna Johnson on the phone felt like talking to a big sister who cared and knew what I needed even beforeI did. She ran down the list of all resources available through Do Cancer, from the healing kit to individual therapy, encouraging me to take advantage of them all.

“So I get to pick which one I want?” I still didn’t get it.

“You can pick all of them,” she told me.

“At NO cost?” I asked, skeptically. As a journalist, I’m trained to question everything, ask the hard queries, get past any smoke and mirrors. But here, there was nothing to get past. It really was as Brenna said:a literal buffet of wellness modalities.

Remember the scene from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”when Willy Wonka opened the door to the lush, candy-filled garden and chocolate river? That’s how I felt---like this glorious, too-good-to-be-true smorgasbord of things only dreamed about before but never accessed, all just given to me.I’m talking self-hypnosis, breathwork, meditation, creativity groups, organic food delivery services. The list boggled my mind. It still does.

Brenna encouraged me to try them all (and never tired of me asking “Are you sure it’s free? Are you sure I get X-amount of sessions?”). I finally learned to meditate with Shannon Cury and her breathwork practice. I gained much-needed insight to my inner terrain and integrative nutrition withPatrice Surley. Through Katya Lovejoy’s Health Empowerment course, I moved past my preconceived notions of hypnosis and healed past trauma I didn’t even know existed. With Dr. Fran Baumgarten’s one-on-one therapy work, I not only learned how to handle scanxiety and side effect fears, but I found inspiration through her own triumph over stage 4 cancer. The eight-week Resilient Narratives course with Thandi Montgomery taught me how to be stronger, more motivated, more driven to live and a better creative writer. It allowed me to dream again. And the Post-Treatment Wellness 12-week group with survivor Madison Pollack introduced me to new friends and a safe place to share and learn. I still have my vision board from that course front and center to remind me where I’m going now.

One of the best parts? The courses were mainly taught by cancer survivors, showing us that life beyond the diagnosis and chemo chair isn’t just possible, but probable.

The most surprising thing I found was that all the mentors in this program and all the offerings hit so much deeper than just the surface.Every single one touched on the emotional and mental aspect of cancer treatment and survivorship. I went into this journey thinking I had to rectify my ship physically. What was the point of “feeling good” if my vessel sank? But throughDo Cancer, I learned without a hearty and healthy mind/spirit anchor, my body would be the Titanic, no matter how many supplements I took or kale smoothies I drank.

To this day, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around all Do Cancer has done for me, and for all of us in this cancer club. It helped me navigate treatment for my breast cancer, which I expected it to do on some level. But it did so very much more than that. I used to say it gave me my life back.

But that’s not accurate.

My old life rattled and wheezed, panicked and screamed at every dark corner. It smelled like fear and worry.  When it shattered, I felt paralyzed. How could I put it back together again? But at the end of the day, I actually didn’t want that life back. Do Cancer gave me the tools to rebuild something so very much better. Slowly, piece by piece, a life I once only dreamed about on a vision board began to take shape. I’m not the same person I was two years ago.I’m coming out of the ashes better, armored by all the women at Do Cancer who came before me, who guided me and who told me there is life beyond cancer. AndI if I could do cancer, I could do anything.

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WHAT CANCER TAUGHT ME

At first, it taught me I could be angrier and more terrified than I ever thought possible and still be alive. It devastated me to my core. But soon I began to see all these gifts unfold, and growth begin to happen. People came into my life, opportunities opened up, I grew closer to my family and I began to see life much, much differently. Cancer inspired me to not care so much about what I “should” be doing or worry so much about checking all the boxes off of some random societal approval scorecard. It helped me stop saving for a special occasion and start living. It gave me permission to stop being so afraid all the time. I prepared more than anyone I have ever known to keep cancer AWAY. And I still got it. When that happened, I felt a lot of betrayal and fury. But then I began to feel a sense of purpose, some meaning behind it all. I was once told, “the teacher appears when the student is ready.” I let cancer teach me how to live a more fulfilling, honest life. It is still a work in progress, but now I understand why people say they’re grateful for the experience.

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