I have been married to the love of my life, Tim, for 36 years and we have two beautiful daughters. Kelsey is an ER nurse, and Bridget is a merchandising director and social media manager. I am a licensed school psychologist at the high school level, and I devoted my life for 33 years to working with adolescents whom I love.
19 Years Ago: I was diagnosed with breast cancer after my two older sisters had also been diagnosed. (No, we do NOT have the BRACA gene). I took a year off from life to have a lumpectomy, sentinel node biopsy, ancillary node dissection, chemotherapy with AC for six rounds and seven weeks of radiation. Shortly after I finished treatment, my older sister, Mary Lou, died of metastasized breast cancer–6 weeks after it metastasized to her brain. This culminated in my having my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed and a bilateral mastectomy with DIEP reconstruction. I then went on an aromatase inhibitor for ten years since my cancer was ER+. Three years after I stopped, at the beginning of 2015, I went for a spine MRI due to spinal stenosis. It was incidentally discovered my breast cancer had metastasized to my liver, a few lymph nodes, and under my right kidney where a solid tumor had crushed my ureter and destroyed my right kidney. Stage 4. We were off and running…
During this time I decided to blog about my experiences (The Cancer Chronicles at barbigwire.com) mostly so I could tell my children about myself and maybe a few life lessons along the way for the inevitable time when I would die. My blog, sometimes funny, sometimes serious, always includes music I am attached to at the moment and of course, my love for Lucy and Calvin and Hobbes and Life of Pi. It always chronicles the truth about living with MBC. I am still shocked when people tell me it touches them or teaches them something about how best to live life. I am beyond grateful to have the opportunity to share my life with the community and to feel in some small way I may have helped someone somewhere when they needed it most.
Over the past tumultuous four years I have tried several treatments, switched oncologists and hospitals and have continued to travel, a promise my husband and I made the first time around—to Iceland, Belize, Aruba, Italy, Colorado, Texas, North Carolina, and California.
After several failed treatments, a second liver biopsy showed that my cancer had mutated from ER+ to Triple Negative. With that, I signed up for a clinical trial with immunotherapy that started in January of 2016. After three months, I began to fail drastically. I was hospitalized with hyper-inflammatory syndrome and complete organ failure. In a last-ditch effort to save me, I was placed in a medically induced coma for days and given a less than 10% chance of surviving. Steroids, at a massive dose, were administered, as well as hemodialysis. Miraculously it worked. After a month in the hospital and a 42-pound weight loss, I was transferred to an acute rehab facility for another month so I could re-learn how to walk, swallow, sit up, use my hands, etc. I managed to get off hemodialysis too. Seven weeks later, I went home with five months of Physical Therapy to follow. Currently, I am treatment free and have been for over three years—the unicorn! Today I have gait instability, adrenal insufficiency, word retrieval issues, severe fatigue, and significant neuropathy in my hands and feet as a result of the immunotherapy, but I am alive and doing well.
You may recognize me from my usual stint at the registration desk at the DC Stampede, the 2018 Elements Campaign, (#thisismbc), with my daughter Bridget, the Count Me In video for the MBC Project, live streaming from LLBC about the MBC Project, or New York Fashion Week 2019 (#notjustone). In addition, I have raised a combined total of over $100,000 for MBCN and Metavivor through Booty for the Battle, Celebrity Bartending, and the Metaribbon Challenge.
It is hard to have a consistent voice in the struggle against MBC when our leaders die week after week. I find it difficult to carry on sometimes knowing my time here is short and there is so much to do. Despite this, I believe that love always shows up, kindness matters.