Marianne’s Breast Cancer Journey: My Healing Truth After Breast Cancer 

Not a Return, But a Becoming: My Healing Truth After Breast Cancer

So. I was the patient who believed I could leave breast cancer completely behind after treatment. And, yeah. How wrong I was.

Back when I was diagnosed in 2016, I truly believed that all I had to do was get through that single mastectomy, and I’d be done. I could close the door on breast cancer forever. Because really, that was my only treatment other than a daily pill. Didn’t need chemo. Didn’t need radiation. But even so, my very methodical mind would have thought the same thing. In this case it was — Get on that OR table. Recover. Go back to your normal life.

What did I know?

We all know that’s not how it works. But I had never cancered before. Not even as a caregiver. The only thing I had to compare it to was my C-sections. It’s all surgery, right? You recover, you move on. Why would this be any different?

Where do I start?

Maybe with the loss of my breast. The scars on my chest. The way I avoided mirrors for months and months, even after reconstruction, too afraid to see. Because it wouldn’t be me. Or the fatigue that gripped me long after surgical recovery. I never knew when it would hit. And it hit hard. One moment I was okay. The next, I had no choice but to sit or lie down. As someone told me, you never know how much gas you have left in the tank. But I always knew before this.

Whose body was this? Not mine. Needing naps everyday. Two, three times even more. What? Not being able to complete a sentence because you forgot what you were about to say. Or you can’t remember the word for what something is called.That wasn’t me. Memory was one of my biggest strengths that I heavily relied on. Not anymore. Even to this day. Writing, wordsmithing was my jam. How could I not know a word? And not being able to read a book because I couldn’t focus.That was a gut punch. I grew up devouring books. I had a stack ready to go just for my recovery. It had always been my go-to way to relax. Gone.

And where’d my hair go? That was perhaps one of the cruelest surprises. No one mentioned I’d lose my thick, curly hair. First from the anesthesia and pain meds Then from the tamoxifen, that daily pill. Even now, post-menopausal and off all meds, it’s never returned to what it was. I began to hate taking a shower, another one of my go-to relaxers. I couldn’t stand seeing how much hair I was losing. The loss of all these things and more, and being blindsided by much of it, made me feel stranded. As if I was living in a stranger’s body, living a stranger’s life. When would she come back? The me who I knew.

Turns out, never. Because, again, that’s not how it works. Healing isn’t about returning — it’s about becoming. Taking pieces of the old, fusing it with pieces of the new. And for me, this was so unexpected. But. Once I stopped yearning and mourning for exactly who I was and started looking at who I was now, things changed for the better. No, I still can’t run 5 miles like I used to. But. I run. And now I also walk, which I really enjoy. Perhaps because it slows me down and gives me space, something I never knew was a thing before breast cancer. Now I know I love reiki, mindfulness and breath work. Not to mention the incredible power of community and just how very healing helping others is.

If I could rewrite my past, I’d tell myself this: Don’t fight so hard to go back. Embrace the becoming. Because that’s where healing really happens.