Therese (Mom)

Cancer entered my life twice, each time like an unexpected storm interrupting an ordinary day. I was only 24 when I first heard the words Hodgkin’s lymphoma directed at me—too young to fully understand what it meant, but old enough to know that everything was about to change.

Treatment quickly became my new routine, and survival my new priority.

I lost my hair, my energy, and pieces of time I can never get back., but I held tightly to hope. Somehow, little by little, the storm began to pass. Treatments ended, my strength slowly returned, and I learned how to build a life again.

For twenty years, that life unfolded quietly. I became a wife, a mother, and someone who believed she had already fought her biggest battle—or so I thought.

Then at 44, cancer returned.

This time it was breast cancer, and its arrival felt almost cruel in its familiarity. I recognized the language immediately—the appointments, the waiting rooms, the quiet fear that sits beside you like a shadow, but I also recognized something else: my strength.

Treatment wasn’t easier the second time. In many ways, it was harder. I had more life behind me, more people who depended on me, and more to lose. But I also had wisdom. I knew what it meant to endure. I knew that strength doesn’t always look brave on the outside—sometimes it looks like simply showing up for the next appointment, the next treatment, the next day.

People often talk about cancer in the past tense—when I had cancer, when treatment ended, when I rang the bell, but the truth is, cancer doesn’t end when the scans come back clear. Survivorship is its own landscape. It’s filled with lingering fatigue, quiet uncertainty, and the complicated process of learning to live in a body that no longer feels like the one you once knew. Some days I am reminded of what cancer took from me. Other days I am overwhelmed with gratitude for what it left behind.

I once heard someone refer to a double mastectomy as an amputation. I had never thought about it that way before. At that moment, it stopped me. It made me realize that I’m not sure I ever truly allowed myself to grieve that loss. At the time, the focus was survival—making it through surgery, through treatment, through the next step. There wasn’t much room to mourn what my body had lost along the way.

Another loss came after my breast cancer treatment at 44—my hair. During treatment, everyone reassures you that hair will grow back, that it’s temporary., but for me, it never returned the way it once was. Today I have only a fraction of the hair I once had. It may sound like a small thing compared to surviving cancer, but the loss of my hair has quietly reshaped how I see myself. For many women, hair is deeply tied to identity and femininity. Looking in the mirror and seeing someone different than the woman I remember can be a harsh reminder of everything my body has endured. There are still moments when I grieve that version of myself.

Now, at 56, I am still learning how to live inside this new version of myself. I take life one day at a time, discovering what feels possible and offering myself grace when things don’t.

Cancer changed my priorities. It reshaped what I value, who I surround myself with, and how I choose to spend my energy. It taught me that healing isn’t always about returning to who you once were. Sometimes healing means rebuilding your life in an entirely different way. My journey isn’t wrapped in perfection or tidy triumph. It’s filled with fear and gratitude, setbacks and small victories, and an ongoing search for balance in a body that has been through war.

But I am here. I am living.

And every ordinary morning I wake up is a quiet reminder that survival isn’t just about staying alive—it’s about learning how to keep going.