The Life-Changing Lessons I Want Every Woman to Know

It’s October. You’ve probably noticed the proliferation of hot pink and news stories about breast cancer.  A few years ago, I was aware of breast cancer. But in reality, I thought it was something that happened to others—and usually to women much older than me. I sometimes got my screening mammograms, but more often put those off. After all, I was a busy mom and NBC News Correspondent. Life was full.

Then, breast cancer happened to me. To say I am aware of it now is an understatement. While I am in remission and doing well, breast cancer is still my constant companion. As my doctor once told me, a headache is never a headache once you’ve had cancer. I think about recurrence often, and I am learning to live with that. There have also been other lessons about the disease, the journey, and the incredible women who share this path. Here are my top five takeaways.

1. Cancer Doesn’t Always Look Like a Lump

In September 2019, breast cancer was the last thing on my mind. I was in my 40s, active, and had just had a screening mammogram that spring. Then, my world was turned on its head. I was getting ready to go out when I caught a glimpse of a slight dent in my right breast. I had never noticed it before. I wasn’t great about regular self breast exams, but this time I paid attention.

I thought back to a story I had reported on several years before for NBC News. I had interviewed a doctor and patient at the Mayo Clinic about a study that found 1 in 6 women with breast cancer doesn’t present with a lump. The doctor told me some women find dimples or a change to the contour of the breast. Others can see discharge, redness, or notice itching and swelling.

The next day I was sent to cover a hurricane along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It would have been easy to put my own health aside and focus on work. My husband, however, wouldn’t let me, and I couldn’t get the study about unusual symptoms out of my mind. My doctor wrote a prescription for diagnostic imaging and, in between live shots, I went to the local hospital for a mammogram and ultrasound. A nurse even asked why I didn’t just wait until I got home. I couldn’t. Within days, I was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer.

2. You Are Your Own Best Advocate      

Over the past two years, I have thought often about where I would be if I had ignored that rare symptom and hadn’t pushed for diagnostic tests. If it had been just six months later—which was the start of the global coronavirus pandemic—I would have almost certainly waited to seek a diagnosis. So many women have. By some counts, the number of people who will die from breast or colorectal cancer in the U.S. will increase by nearly 10,000 over the next decade because of COVID-19’s impact on oncology care.

There are women out there now who are ignoring symptoms or putting off testing as their cancer grows, and it breaks my heart. Nobody knows your body like you do. Even if a screening test like a mammogram is negative, pay attention to any changes in your body. Since my diagnosis, I have learned mammograms are only 87% effective and are less sensitive in women like me with dense breast tissue. I try not to play the what if game too often, but when I do, I am so grateful I found the dent in my breast when I did and was able to advocate for testing and diagnosis. I don’t know where I would be if I hadn’t.

3. Cancer is Not Linear

I finished radiation treatment in April 2020. I had by all accounts crushed cancer. I hardly missed a beat, working as I sailed through chemotherapy and radiation with few side effects. I had no evidence of disease. “Life” as I knew it was about to restart, and I was ready.

But cancer is not linear. As I write this, my right arm is aching and swollen, the result of lymphedema, a potentially crippling side effect of having cancerous lymph nodes removed.  In the past year I have endured three painful surgeries: one to reconstruct my breasts using natural tissue from my abdomen and potentially restore some feeling I had lost, and two more when that first surgery was a devastating failure. I now have implants, and instead of regaining feeling in my chest, I also have numbness through my abdomen and even part of my leg.

It’s important to note that my experience is completely different than the multiple women I talked to in researching my surgery, reinforcing the fact there is no cancer playbook. Each of us impacted by this disease is affected in unique ways, and for me, reconstruction has been infinitely harder than treatment.

Cancer looks different for everyone. Being flexible and honoring your own path and your own feelings helps. Treat yourself with the grace and understanding you would give others. Cancer patients can deal with the physical and emotional impacts of the disease long after treatment.

4. You Are Not Alone

 While every cancer experience is individual, the battle is not. From the moment I was diagnosed, I have been surrounded by the most amazing network of breast cancer patients and survivors—or as I now prefer to call them, thrivers.

There was the colleague who offered to drive hours to spend the night with me when I was stuck alone in an airport hotel, because she knew what it was like to wait for a biopsy.  There was the friend and breast cancer survivor who spent her days off at the same hospital where she worked long, grueling hours, so she could sit with me through chemotherapy because she knew how scary it could be. There was the complete stranger who talked me through how she told her own young children about her cancer when I was struggling to talk to my daughter, then sent us tips and care packages through my treatment.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosis among U.S. women (1 in 8.)  According to the American Cancer Society, as of 2019 more than 3.8 million women were living with a history of breast cancer.  It’s a club nobody wants to join, but one full of women who are thoughtful and generous even while dealing with their own medical challenges.

Society calls us breast cancer warriors. It can often be hard to feel like one. But what I have realized is none of us is waging this battle alone. These women are an example to anyone, whether you are battling cancer or not. If the millions of women who face this devastating disease can lift complete strangers, why can’t all of us do the same for each other? If we did this, the world would be a better place—and each of us would know we aren’t alone in whatever challenge we face.

5. Challenge the Prognosis 

With early detection, science can do amazing things. Many will live long lives after a cancer diagnosis, but battling cancer early in life can leave you feeling lost, unsure of how to handle the physical and emotional scars.

That’s why I have been particularly drawn to a charity called the iRise Above Foundation, an organization designed to help those of us diagnosed in our 20s, 30s and 40s who want to be as active as we have always been and to reclaim our lives not just as survivors, but thrivers.

In 2021 an estimated 281,550 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in women in the U.S., along with 49,290 new cases of non-invasive (in situ.) Of that estimate, 1 in 5 will be under the age of 50 (like me). As I know firsthand, this can present particular challenges: battling this disease with young children, missing work at the height of your career, or suffering sexual side effects in what is supposed to be your prime.

I’ll never forget the social worker who told me my then 3-year-old daughter wouldn’t notice my cancer. I’m not sure how a completely bald mom laying on the couch unable to lift a child goes unnoticed. Cancer has colored so much of our lives, and yet, it can often be hard to find resources that apply to these types of challenges.

So, through wellness programs, adventure travel, webinars, and workouts, iRise Above fills this void. The organization helps women once again become authors of their own stories. And I very quickly learned it is exactly what I need. Participants have been through the ringer, yet we come together to support each other and share tools that are helping us live life to the fullest. One of the group’s tenets is to believe the diagnosis but challenge the prognosis. Some women in the group have stage IV, metastatic cancer—and yet they are living more full and active lives than many might think possible. Every day they challenge the prognosis that cancer must rob them of everything.

Later this month I will join iRise Above for a climbing adventure in Utah. We’ll have Today Show cameras rolling as we rappel down a sheer rock face and hike through a slot canyon. I cannot wait to bring the story to our viewers. But more than that, I cannot wait to see how I am transformed, facing my fears and pushing my body in ways that seemed impossible at times over the past two years.

The group’s motto is  “we rise by lifting others.” I have never found this to be more true. As another October and Breast Cancer awareness month dawns, I can’t help but be hopeful—for myself and for all of us. Breast cancer is not the path I would have chosen. It is in no way what I expected. Great challenges remain, but I have seen the best in humanity in the millions of women who have faced this terrible disease and who’ve chosen generosity and hope over darkness.

Every day I thank each and every one of them, and I vow to be my best self moving forward—for me, for them, and those who follow us.