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If you’ve never lived with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC), congratulations. Really. I hope you never earn membership in this club, but that also means you’re probably an MBC muggle (just a little more specific than a general cancer muggle). Now before you get offended, let me explain. The term “muggle,” borrowed from Harry Potter, simply means someone outside the magical world. They…

DISCLAIMER/BACKGROUND: This post was inspired by someone in a support group who shared about her struggle with the focus on beauty for women with breast cancer of all stages and how dismissive it feels. We share the same perspective and the words below are my take on the subject and with permission. This post is focused on what healthy people do/say and not on MBC patients who include appearance…

People often ask what they should say to someone with cancer, especially since I’ve written quite a bit about what not to say. The ones who ask say they’re afraid they’ll say the wrong thing. Afraid they’ll make us cry. Afraid they’ll remind us of something we’re desperately trying to forget. The truth is almost painfully simple: it’s rarely about finding the perfect words, it’s about refusing…

One of the often hidden burdens of living with terminal cancer is that the decisions never stop. People imagine the hard part is getting the diagnosis or hearing the word progression or running out of treatment options. And yes, those moments are devastating. But there is another kind of burden that receives far less attention: the uncertainty of having to make decisions while standing in the…

Nine (9) years is a strange country to inhabit when you were once told you might only have months. Time changes shape when it is measured not in vacations or promotions or retirement plans, but in scan dates, infusion schedules, pathology reports, and the quiet calculations you do before every holiday, every birthday, every milestone, every ordinary day. Nine (9) years of living with terminal…

There is something about serious illness that seems to transform ordinary people into experts. The moment a diagnosis enters the room, advice follows close behind, bustling and relentless, carrying smoothies and slogans and optimism like talismans against mortality. Everyone suddenly has a philosophy. A cure. A mindset adjustment. A story about someone’s cousin who “beat it” by drinking green…

There is a particular darkness that arrives after a dear friend dies. Not the darkness of the death itself. Not the darkness of the phone call, the text message, the hospice update, the social media announcement, or the funeral. These mechanics of the death process come without warning, but you can handle these parts in community, even when the loss is not a local friend. The darkness I am…

Recently a fellow member of the Live from Stage 4 podcast team, Dr. Jill Tirabassi, recorded an episode reviewing a study examining the Time Burden in Patients With Metastatic Breast and Ovarian Cancer from Clinic and Home Demands (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12709373/) and since cancer care feels like a full time job to me, especially during times of progression, I decided to…