The Whirlwind of Metastatic Breast Cancer

Editor’s Note: This piece was submitted by a contributing writer and does not represent the views of CURE Media Group.

I am a 47-year-old wife and mother of two daughters, and I have stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. I was diagnosed de novo metastatic disease (which means stage 4 at first diagnosis) on Christmas Day 2014, in an emergency room of a rural town. The shock I felt is indescribable. I never went through early stage cancer, and it was terrifying to hear these exact words from an ER doctor: "I'm so sorry, you are 100 percent riddled with tumors." These were not the words that brought me to my knees. It was the confirmation by an oncologist that did.