Deb Ragosta

There are no two cancer patients whose cancer, prognosis and ability to deal with their new reality are exactly the same. Like the newbies at DFCI, I’m sure he’s experiencing a wide range of emotions, but if he were to ask me how to live with having cancer, the only advice I could really offer is for him to fight the good fight. When I returned from my last DFCI visit, I came home to the devastating news that my dear friend, Allan had passed away a few days earlier after living with prostate cancer for 14 years. In the end, however, even though I know breast cancer will probably win, it will never defeat me because I will never, ever stop fighting the good fight!

If someone told me on my 35th birthday that on my 63rd birthday, I would be looking back at 28 years of living with breast cancer, I probably would have told that person I was too young to get breast cancer because only older women like Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan and Shirley Temple got breast cancer. My answer is that I take one day at a time and live my life as a woman who happens to have stage 4 breast cancer, rather than as a terminal cancer patient who happens to be a woman. Having stage 4 breast cancer is not the first thing I think about in the morning, or is it the last thing I think about at night. If my cancer progresses while I’m on Enobosarm, I’ll go back to Ibrance, which is the latest drug to gain FDA approval for certain types of breast cancer and is widely prescribed.

I was recently interviewed for this article in the June edition of Kiplinger’s Magazine. The article focuses on how much living with cancer has changed and will continue to change. Never give up, never loose hope and don’t stop believing! May you realize that even in your darkest moments, something wonderful and amazing can happen that will change your life and remind you to never stop living for those rays of light that will take away the dark.

Those diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer (or any cancer) face change from the moment they hear the words, “your cancer has spread” or “you have cancer. The other change I am experiencing is one that I chose and one that I can change at any time. Like Ibrance before, GTx-024 is being fast-tracked by the FDA, so hopefully, this change for me will help result in another drug for other patients with stage 4 breast cancer. Although almost twenty passed between my stage 1 and stage 4 diagnoses, I was and am determined not to let having breast cancer change the woman I am.