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Laura Montgomery | Incurable Cancer Thriver

@missesmontgomery

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📌Living with Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer #MBC
🎗️DX denovo age 30 10/24/18 NED 6/19
💙Mom to two Type 1 Diabetic kids. #T1D
🛍️Owner of @lilahlaneco

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Eight years living with metastatic breast cancer.

For a long time, I felt stuck in this weird in-between. When I was diagnosed, I left my job and life became appointments, treatments, scans and trying to figure out how to live with a future I never expected.

I became a stay-at-home mom, partly because of everything that came with treatment, but also because I honestly didn’t know how to plan a future when I had no idea how long I’d be here.

I felt like I couldn’t really move forward with my life, so I just kind of stayed in that in-between place.

But here I am. Eight years later.

I’ve been NED (no evidence of disease) for the majority of those eight years. I still have metastatic breast cancer. I still have treatment every three weeks, scans and all the uncertainty that comes with it.

I also know how quickly things can change. I’ve lost far too many friends to this disease, including people who were diagnosed after me. It’s hard not to think about that when you’ve watched people you thought would have more time suddenly not get it. I know being NED doesn’t mean I’m cured, and I never take for granted that things have been going as well as they have.

But being here, eight years in, I feel like I can’t stay in this in-between anymore.

I’ve started working part-time. I’m making plans. I’m starting to think about being around a little longer than I once thought I would be, instead of just focusing on getting through the next appointment, scan or treatment.

And while I’m so grateful to be here, especially knowing how many of my friends haven’t had the same outcome, there’s a strange guilt that comes with it, too.

Why me? Why am I still here when others who were diagnosed after me aren’t?

I don’t have an answer for that. I just know I don’t want to spend the time I have waiting for something to happen. I want to let myself live, make plans and be excited about the possibility of a future I wasn’t sure I’d have.

Eight years ago, I couldn’t have imagined being here.

#mbc #metastaticbreastcancer #breastcancer #cancer #stage4cancer by @missesmontgomery

Unremarkable.

After more than a week of waiting, it’s exactly what we wanted to hear.

I’ve been living with ametastatic breast cancer for 2,796 days, and I’ve been NED for 2,573 of them.

But there isn’t a finish line, at least not one where I’m alive. There isn’t a moment where treatment ends and cancer becomes something that happened in the past.

There are still infusions. Still scans. Still the reality that the next scan is always coming.

The outside world sees a good result. What they don’t always see is the waiting.

The days and weeks spent wondering. The mental energy it takes to carry on with normal life while a part of your brain is stuck waiting for that email.

And sometimes it’s so very lonely. Not because I’m alone, but because so much of the waiting happens quietly inside my own head.

And then the results arrive, and instead of some huge emotional release, it’s just “Okay. Back to treatment. Back to life. See you again in a few months.”

Today, my scans are unremarkable. Boring. Basic. Nothing to report. And in the world of metastatic breast cancer, that’s as good as it gets.

But if I’m being honest, today feels heavy.

I got the results I wanted, yet emotionally I feel like I got the worst results possible.

Maybe it’s the weight of the waiting finally catching up with me. Maybe it’s the reality that even after 2,796 days, this never really becomes normal.

All I know is that today I’m grateful, emotional, and a little lonely all at the same time.

#mbc #cancer #stage4cancer #metastaticbreastcancer #unremarkable by @missesmontgomery

Breast Cancer isn’t pink, it isn’t pretty, and it isn’t a free boob job.

Most people who are diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, denovo, (meaning they had no previous early stage diagnosis) don’t have a mastectomy. This is because the cancer in the breast isn’t the concern anymore. It’s the breast cancer cells that travelled elsewhere to vital organs and bones that is prioritized.

For those of us who do have the opportunity to have a mastectomy (most often people with very few mets, or those who have long term disease control) it is anything but a free boob job. A mastectomy takes all your breast tissue, ripping through your pectoral muscles, and tearing your nerves. You are often left with no feeling, no nipple, and for a lot of people, a flat chest. A mastectomy usually includes lymph node removal which can cause lymphedema (swelling or fluid build up) in the arm.
That’s not the kind of breast surgery anyone wishes for.

Breast cancer is so much more than boobs. It’s not the “good kind” of cancer and it effects 1 in 8 women - teenagers to the elderly, it’s not something to joke about.

Know your body - check yourself.

#metastaticbreastcancer #breastcancer #mastectomy by @missesmontgomery

Will this be his last year trick or treating? by @missesmontgomery

A quick recap of our weekend in NYC.

We packed so much into our weekend, Times Square. Central Park. Rockefeller Centre. The High line. Brooklyn Bridge. 9/11 Memorial. Wall Street. Taylor Swift’s apartment. Taylor Swift’s old Apartment. The Friends Apartment. The Empire State Building. The Statue of Liberty. Grand Central Station. The New York Public Library. Fifth Avenue. Hudson Yards. The Plaza Hotel. Pizza and Bagels. And of course Harry Styles. by @missesmontgomery

Infusion 145

#metastaticbreastcancer #breastcancer #cancer #her2positive by @missesmontgomery

October 9, 2018. The day I got the phone call.

My doctor called me at 9:26 a.m. from her cellphone. She told me the lump was concerning and I needed more testing.

It was just an ultrasound. I didn’t have a diagnosis. Nobody had confirmed anything yet. But I knew.

I was 30 years old, sitting at my desk at work, waiting for answers about a tiny lump I’d found. And somehow, before anyone had even said the word cancer, I knew my life was about to change. I packed up my things, called Ian, and cried the entire way home.

I wouldn’t officially be diagnosed with breast cancer until October 24. I wouldn’t find out it was stage IV until weeks after that.

But October 9 will always be the day I knew. by @missesmontgomery

October 1st. Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Also, the month I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.

Eight years ago, I was 30 years old. I had no idea that October would become a month I’d spend the rest of my life watching everything turn pink, and getting so mad about it.

Pink ribbons. Pink products. Pink everything.

We do not have an awareness problem.

Everyone knows breast cancer exists. But did you know the only stage of breast cancer you die from is the least funded?

Before you buy the pink water bottle, the pink shirt, the pink whatever… ask where the money is going.

Because putting a ribbon on something doesn’t make it cancer research.

And research is what matters.

The treatments keeping me alive today exist because someone, somewhere, funded research. Because scientists kept working. Because clinical trials happened. Because drugs were developed that didn’t exist just a few short years before I was diagnosed.

That is progress.
That is what saves lives.
That is what we need more of.

I don’t need another company to tell me they support breast cancer. Because honestly? Their agenda is making money. And there is an entire industry profiting from a disease that is killing so many of us.

Fund metastatic breast cancer research.

Support organizations putting money toward MBC. Support people currently living with cancer. Send the meal. Buy the coffee. Cover the parking. Offer to drive. Show up.

This October marks 8 years of living with incurable cancer.

Eight years of being told this is something I will live with for the rest of my life.

Eight years of watching my kids grow up and wondering how much more I’ll get to see.

Eight years I wasn’t promised.

And I am still here because of research.

Not awareness.
Not a ribbon.

Research.

So this October, skip the pinkwashing.

Fund the science that gives people like me more time.

#bcam #mbc #breastcancer #pinkwashing by @missesmontgomery

One thing about living in the country… it sure is beautiful. by @missesmontgomery

One thing is for sure, diabetes will never limit what these two kids can do!

@alexzverev123 -2026 US Open Men’s Singles Champion

#type1diabetes #diabetic #t1d by @missesmontgomery

Infusion 144

I was put in my own room today! Something I haven’t had in over 7 years when my treatments were at Princess Margaret in Toronto!

I’ve got a coffee, a blanket, a recliner and a movie. A pretty perfect Thursday morning!

#metastaticbreastcancer #metastaticcancer #her2positive #cancer #breastcancer by @missesmontgomery

Somehow they both grew up over the summer!
Grade 5 & 8 here they come! by @missesmontgomery