metavivor

Tenured Breast Cancer Student- Emily

Tenured Breast Cancer Student- Emily

“I knew very little, especially about metastatic breast cancer. I never considered myself at risk, and certainly didn’t know the statistics, like that 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer in their lifetimes, and 30% of those diagnoses will metastasize, and that metastatic disease only receives 7% of funding for research but still has a life expectancy under 4 years and kills 114 people each day.”

Tenured Breast Cancer Student- Jeanine

Tenured Breast Cancer Student- Jeanine

“I had never, ever, in my deepest of life’s depression, considered suicide. My very first chemo dose in 2017, the steroids hit me so bad, I was refusing to go back. I was able to look my (at the time) four year old right in the eye and think she was better off without me. I’d never been in that spot before, or even remotely considered it, and it was educational. I went back and immediately talked about how it felt and we cut the steroids. Everything after that. . . . was kind of bearable. I learned to accept how I cope with things, that showing off and feeling awful are ok, and so long as I get up the next day, I might as well do it again. What else am I doing, anyway?”

Tenured Breast Cancer Student- Chiara D'Agostino

Tenured Breast Cancer Student- Chiara D'Agostino

"I learned that I don’t need mounds on my chest to feel like a woman, that I’m even more resilient than I ever thought I was, and that, at least at this moment in time, I’m leaning towards not being afraid of dying."