Yara's Story: Leaning Into What Serves Me After an MBC Diagnosis
Yara is a Breastcancer.org Community member and an Egyptian feminist researcher living in Hurghada, Red Sea, Egypt.
Everything in my life changed after my initial diagnosis in 2020, as I had to come face to face with the fear I felt the most. For almost 15 years, since I found a benign lump, I've been scared of getting breast cancer and when it happened I started taking many life decisions I've been putting off. I was braver in life, but every day I was scared of recurrence, struggling with scanxiety, medication side effects, and personal relationships.
Discovering that cancer came back was the biggest shock of my life. I thought, "I'm going to die within a very short period of time," and I remember as I was recovering from a back surgery a friend sent me an article from Breastcancer.org containing advice from patients who had metastatic breast cancer for a while to those newly diagnosed, and another article to share with friends to help navigate the conversation. These two articles gave me hope and tools at at the most difficult time of my life. Although I didn't believe that I will feel better after the first year, I still held on to the words of others who were telling me it will. And it did. It is almost surreal to think about how I felt at the start of my metastatic diagnosis and now.
Strangely, I'm less scared of recurrences. Maybe because I know for a fact that it will happen at some point, no matter how long I'm stable in remission. However, being so close to death made me bolder and braver. I found myself no longer wishing for those people who ghosted me to come back to me, as I felt I had no time for these types of relationship dynamics in my life. I wanted to live my life fully, as long and as much as I can. I try to find a way to do what I like and not put it off. I became clearer about my emotional boundaries, and only things that mattered the most are on my priority list right now. I no longer want to waste time and energy on things or people who don't bring my heart joy and hope. Not to say that I don't have arguments or fights with loved ones, but now I know that these moments are temporary, and that what's in my life right now is intentionally in it, not out of coincidence or fear. I am more true to myself right now, as I can't afford otherwise.