Living a Fulfilling Life Despite MBC

Living with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) can sometimes trick me into believing that my life is now essentially little more than a series of medical tests and treatments. It can feel like my identity begins and ends with cancer.

Before breast cancer, I was in graduate school and working towards a career as an equine veterinarian. I had goals. I have always thrived in the academic and career worlds—I like pressure, deadlines, working hard, and feeling accomplished.

When I started chemotherapy, I had to leave veterinary school. Even though I later went into remission, I knew that vet school would no longer work for me, so I worked hard to build a freelance medical writing and editing business instead. I felt fulfilled and proud of the business that I built. When I became stage 4, I scaled back my client load but continued to work, determined not to let go of this part of my life. When the cancer spread to my brain, my days in the work force officially ended.

I no longer have the energy to study or work. My days are now scheduled around doctors’ appointments, my weeks around infusions, my months around PET/CT scans. The word “terminal” is never far from my mind; I exist with an expected expiration date that makes long-term plans difficult at best. My primary goal is now to get through each day. My purpose in life is to survive.

In truth, I struggle with feeling fulfilled in such an existence.

Then I began to write about my experiences as a 25-year-old breast cancer patient. It started as a cathartic exercise and slowly turned into something more. I joined writing groups and built a website. I began to feel a sense of accomplishment through my writing that I had not felt since my pre-cancer life.

My writing took an exciting turn about a year and a half ago when I received an email from filmmaker and director Kerith Lemon proposing that we turn one of my short stories into a short film, bare. I enthusiastically agreed. We hoped to create something that would feel empowering for the breast cancer community, to show an honest slice of what it is like to have breast cancer at 25, and to bring some awareness to the issues surrounding metastatic breast cancer.

Bare tells the story of how three of my closest childhood friends helped me shave my head before my first chemotherapy infusion when I was first diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. My friends consoled me through my grief, hugged me when I cried, and helped me process the overwhelming fear that had pervaded every inch of my life since hearing the word “cancer”—fear about what would happen to me, how I would look, who I would become, if I would live at all.

In May, I had the opportunity to go to L.A. to watch the filming of bare. Part of me wanted to sob watching this scene from my life being acted out—but I didn’t want to be that girl sobbing on the film set, so I held back—part of me felt numb to it—it was all just so surreal—and part of me felt damn proud of myself. Proud that I had created something worthy of all these people coming together and working really hard to turn it into this beautiful film; proud of how far I have come since that day seven years ago when I wondered if I would ever feel beautiful again, if I would ever know what it meant to be loved by a man, if I’d have the strength to get through all that was to come. Proud that I found the strength, that I continue to find it every day, that even when I feel sick, I get up, push through, and have the experiences that mean everything.

In fact, I am more proud of this film than anything I ever worked on in school or in my freelance business. I believe that we have created something unique, beautiful, and powerful, and I accomplished my part of the project despite living with metastatic cancer, despite constant treatments, despite recovering from brain surgery and brain radiation.

Through bare, I rediscovered a facet of my identity that I thought I had lost amidst all the treatments and scans. It reminded me that my life is so much more than one medical intervention after another, that I am more than a cancer patient. I am a writer, a creator, a woman determined to continue living fully and purposefully.

Originally published in the MBC: YOUNG & STAGE IV, Vol 2, No 4 (Oct 2017) issue of Wildfire Magazine.

Bare was released in October, 2017 and can be viewed here. It was screened at the 9th Annual Lady Filmmakers Festival in Beverly Hills, California. Follow bare on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Rebecca Hall, co-writer of the short film bare, was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer when she was 25 years old, just after beginning veterinary school at U.C. Davis. At 29 years old, the cancer metastasized to her bones and distant lymph nodes. Despite her diagnosis, she continued to work as a freelance medical writer and editor, as well as starting her own outdoor yoga company, Santa Cruz Nature Yoga. Rebecca’s breast cancer returned again in November 2016 and spread to her brain. She underwent an emergency craniotomy, followed by brain radiation. Rebecca is now recovering and lives in Santa Cruz, CA with her husband and her dog, Harriet. Follow Rebecca on her blog, Cancer, you can suck it.