I was training for my 7th marathon in 2023 when I found out my stage IV cancer had spread again, this time to my brain. I found my brain mets by accident when they showed up on an unrelated MRI of my cervical spine. I had no symptoms and would not have known to ask […]
Topic: Proton Therapy
I like being a student. Learning is something I never get tired of. The work I did as an undergraduate student in a neuroscience lab, as well as getting my master’s degree in library science set me up to be a lifelong learner, but in a way, I did not expect. About six years after […]
Topics: Radiation Therapy for Leptomeningeal Disease
Topics: HER2 Low
Topic: LITT Procedure
Topic: Moving Through Progression while Maintaining Hope
The bad news In May of 2022, I was diagnosed with hormone-negative, HER2+ breast cancer. Almost every scan or study brought more bad news. The CT showed two small spots in my lungs, which the biopsy confirmed were metastases. I knew that cancer could metastasize to the brain, which was the one thing not getting […]
Hi, I’m Natalia! Here is my breast cancer elevator pitch: I was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in 2017 when I was 33 years old, diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2019, and here I am, not dead. I’m from Salt Lake City, UT, and I lived most of my adult life in Phoenix, AZ, […]
Yes, it is malignant Just as with my early-stage cancer diagnosis, my diagnosis of metastatic cancer and then brain Mets took quite a while. In each case, we weren’t quite sure what I had. I was diagnosed and treated for stage one breast cancer in 2003. All was well until 11 years later when I […]
