I am 35 years young, married to my husband Seth, and we have a 6 year old daughter, Yael. We live just outside of Philadelphia in Plymouth Meeting. I am a certified Speech-Language Pathologist of 12 years and currently work with the pediatric population.
Type/Stage of Cancer: Stage 2b, Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Diagnosed: 2020
Age of Children When Diagnosed: 5
Take me back and tell me about the day when you were told “you have cancer”.
I prepared myself to hear it, but nothing truly prepares you when you hear those words on the phone. I lost my breath, opened the door to find a neighbor outside, and sent my daughter off to go play with someone while I screamed and cried with my husband.
Tell me, how many doctors did you meet with before you decided on your medical team and treatment plan? Did you get the same opinion for your treatment plan or were there conflicting plans? This is often the hardest part, the beginning. What were the key factors in your final selection?
I met with 3 different universities before settling on one team in one location, which is MD Anderson. The treatment plan was the same in terms of medicine, but differed in interpretation of my MRI and whether there was lymph node involvement. I went with the Doctor who told me you don’t assume the lymph nodes are lighting up because of inflammation due to initial biopsies. He was aggressive and I appreciated that because those lymph nodes ended up having cancer in them.
What are the most surprising lessons have you learned from your journey?
I am actually the happiest I have ever been. I see life differently. I appreciate the little things and my priorities have shifted. I can really thank cancer for that.
I’m sure readers would want to understand how other moms are approaching telling their children, as it’s different for every family and various ages. How did you approach this delicate conversation and is there any advice for other moms you can share?
This was very hard because my daughter knew another child who lost their Mom to breast cancer. I didn’t want her to associate my diagnosis with death. So, I was very careful with what I told her. Honest about my treatment and what was going to happen with the medications, but we did not say cancer. I let her have some control in this journey by naming my tumor (it was a hard ball in my armpit) and also my port. So, she would walk around saying “bally boo is really going away… shrinker dinker is working!” Now that I am cancer free and doing so well, I am ready to use the words breast cancer around her and I see that happening in the very near future. I hope she understands one day how I was protecting her, but also always trusts me.
How do you balance work, family and treatment?
The blessing of COVID was that we were together at home through this. My husband worked from home, my daughter was in virtual school, and I worked 10 hours doing teleintervention while I juggled treatment, too. I kept saying that I couldn’t imagine it any other way. There were so many road trips from the burbs of Philly to Camden, NJ (MD Andersoon) for appointments and we really made the best of it with dance parties in the car and our Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks!
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Knowledge is power. Be an informed consumer and do your research. One might say we don’t have a lot of control with our cancer, but I found that we do. Take control of you the environment you live in with exercise, the food we put in our bodies, and the everyday toxins.
Who are your biggest influences? Who do you admire the most?
With my view on life changing so much since my cancer diagnosis, I am not sure I can answer this question right now. I don’t think I can pick just one person. My head is all over the place with this question.
What do you want your legacy to be?
So hard for me to put this in writing because it sounds so definitive. I am sure what I want to leave behind will change over the years, but right now, I am working so hard so all young jewish men and women know about BRCA, which is a cancer genetic mutation that I was found to carry after my breast cancer diagnosis. If people are educated on BRCA risk factors and know to screen for this mutation, cancer can be prevented. To know that my cancer could have been avoidable is maddening, but I am taking that anger and trying to help all the other young women and men out there.
What do the words, “Beautiful Struggle”, mean to you?
To me, it is exactly how I view everything from my diagnosis until now. I struggled and still do, but I always somehow saw the silver lining through it all. Cancer during COVID… Ok, well that meant time with my family 24/7 at home as I went through treatment. Now that I type this and answer this question, I am remembering that as a little girl, I would always tell myself that something good would happen for everything bad that happened. Thank you Amy for bringing this out- I am a bit emotional in remembering this. If this is true, which I always believed it to be, I am in store for some greatness!!!!! I guess that little Abby always knew somehow to find the beauty in the bad. Perhaps I have been preparing myself my entire life for my beautiful struggle?