Jim Carrey once said during a 2014 commencement speech, “Fear is going to be a player in your life, but you get to decide how much. You could spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the pathway to the future, but all there will ever be is what’s happening here and the decisions we make in this moment, which are based in either love or fear.”
On February 10, 2025, I met my ghost, Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Definitely not friendly like the infamous Casper. What started as a “slow-growing and lazy” cancer became an “aggressive, angry” cancer after surgery.
The deluge of information, doctor appointments, and opinions came at me like a tsunami, drowning me in my most vulnerable moments. I found myself suddenly placed on a conveyor belt of cancer cases, moving at a pace over which I felt I had no control. My trust was often given too quickly to my care team without merit, without a relationship built over time. Time that I feared I did not have due to the diagnosis.
Pressing Pause
What if I told you that you have the autonomy to press “pause” on that conveyor belt, even for a moment, and doing so can change your entire trajectory in ways you could have never imagined? Would you do it? Well, that is exactly what I did.
The decisions I made at the beginning, immediately following my diagnosis, were made mostly out of fear. How could they not be when the experts told me my only option was chemo?
Thankfully, I had the foresight to take advantage of a second-opinion service offered through my employer. They coached me on questions to ask and what steps were next. I had top experts at my fingertips who reviewed all my labs and test results.
Weeks later, my second opinion confirmed my gut feeling. After multiple retests, the pathologist’s original findings were overturned. I was both gobsmacked and relieved.
The trust in my primary team was broken and irreparable. This led to the difficult decision to change teams while finalizing my new diagnosis.
Making major, life-altering decisions within a span of hours isn’t for the faint of heart. But I quickly realized that I was the absolute best person to make those key decisions.
Instead of choosing fear, I chose love. Love for myself. Love for my future. Love for the life that was being redefined at every moment.
Instead of blindly trusting those around me, I made it my mission to take my life back by educating myself on the latest treatments, clinical trials, available resources, and pathology results. I even traveled to another hospital district to get a third opinion.
There was nothing “garden variety” about my situation, and therefore, I came prepared to every appointment with questions and notes in hand. This was not easy, and at times it was quite exhausting.
Stop, Drop, and Roll
My advice to you is not unlike what some of us learned in school to keep us safe in case of a fire. Because, as we all know, cancer is a fire. A blazing, out-of-control inferno that, if we aren’t careful, can engulf us in flames of confusion and fear.
STOP: Take a breath and ask yourself, what is your main motivation for your decision-making? Do you have all the information you need to make this decision? If not, find your trusted resource(s) and get what you need.
DROP: Drop everything, even if it’s just for a moment, to sit and reflect on what you want and need in your care. It’s incredibly important for you to trust your care team and for them to match your communication/learning style.
ROLL: Roll off that conveyor belt. There are plenty of resources out there to help you come up with questions specific to your situation. It’s going to take fighting the inevitable inertia, but I believe in you.
Working With Fear, Not Against It
I sometimes picture the person I was when first diagnosed. I can still see the fear in her tear-filled eyes. If I had the chance to speak to her today, I would grab her by the hands, look her straight in the eyes, and say, “You have time. Take it.”
Your situation could be completely different. What worked for me might not work for you. It is absolutely okay to trust your care team. I have the utmost faith in my team now because I have the right fit for me.
We all deserve the absolute best and most accurate care for our specific situation.
Today, I work with various hospital systems to meet my needs holistically and involve my care team in all my decision-making. I know more about breast cancer than I care to admit. So much so, that those who I interact with question whether or not I’m a scientist because: “Nobody ever asks these questions.”
I long not to be the minority in this area.
Jim’s commencement message is now embedded in my belief system. It simplifies the complexities I face on a daily basis. Fear will, in fact, always be a part of my life, but the difference now is I know what to do with it.
