When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, my boyfriend Michael and I were still in the beginning stages of our relationship.
My Cancer Story
What do you do when — after planning your life and working hard to achieve your dreams — your plans are interrupted by cancer?
I’m not a tanning guy, but my day-to-day job is all outside. Leading up to my diagnosis, I never wore sunscreen. The biggest thing I learned throughout all of this is to not wait.
I was told the tumor was inoperable and I had two years to live if I received chemotherapy and radiation. Just two years.
I hope my story can help someone else, especially other young moms. So many people are depending on you, and it can feel so overwhelming. You’re tired and emotional, but you have to be strong in front of your kids. You don’t want them to worry, and that alone makes it doubly exhausting.
I was 27-years-old and went to my primary care doctor for a sore shoulder and a cough that only happened when I laughed. Given a recent backpacking trip, it made sense when his initial diagnosis was a shoulder strain. But as an extra precaution, he ordered a chest x-ray. That’s when he found the mass under my sternum, near my heart.
Six years after treatment for kidney cancer, Robert Kayser reflects on the good fortune that led to his surprise diagnosis, successful surgery, and a healthy retirement filled with bicycling, artisan bread baking and traveling in coastal Alabama.