Author: Abigail Johnston

I'm a daughter, a wife, a mother, and I've been living with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer since March, 2017. All of the words I publish are my own.

Anniversaries, three years and counting.

It's been a whole year ago since I posted about celebrating my second anniversary of blogging here at WordPress. You can read that one here. I celebrated last year by appearing on a radio show to talk about living with a terminal diagnosis. This year, three years, is not quite as celebratory. I got this … Continue reading Anniversaries, three years and counting. →

Acceptable Risk

I've been thinking a lot about acceptable risk in the context of living with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) while immunocompromised and COVID and all of what we deal with on a daily basis in the world today. I was a little surprised at the variety of definitions out there, but I do like … Continue reading Acceptable Risk →

Medical Update, October 2021

As most of you know, I get a quarterly PET/CT imaging test to determine if the cancer cells are behaving themselves. October 11, 2021 was my most recent PET/CT and it wasn't what we'd hoped for and, frankly, only happened in October because I'd advocated for it since I qualified for testing every six (6) … Continue reading Medical Update, October 2021 →

October/Pinktober 2021, wrapping up

Thank you for sticking with me this month! October tends to be a long month for those of us living with cancer. It's triggering, it brings up memories, it can cause consternation in the extreme. And yet, we survived another October. My purpose in sharing my story and the details of living with Stage IV … Continue reading October/Pinktober 2021, wrapping up →

BCAM 2021: Day #31 and Happy Halloween

As you consider how you will celebrate Halloween and the end of October, consider this number of men and women in the US who are no longer with us. This number is an average of the number of people we lose in the US all year, but the point is the same. While we get … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #31 and Happy Halloween →

BCAM 2021: Day #30

I don't know the details of this survey like how the participants were found or the demographics, but I do know that the results are really frustrating. There are so many myths that have become so mainstream that it's hard to address them. So many people think that those of us who have MBC are … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #30 →

BCAM 2021: Day #29

When I first heard these stats, I was floored. To work in an industry that fails much more often than not has to be so discouraging. I am in awe of the scientists that are told no over and over and over and yet keep showing up for work, keep trying to find the answer … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #29 →

BCAM 2021: Day #28

I've participated thus far in three different clinical trials. None of the clinical trials involved medication, but rather different ways of testing and interacting with different types of tissue. Sometimes I've participated by sending the paraffin blocks of tumor cells (also called "tumor blocks") and sometimes I've participated by having blood draws at various times … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #28 →

BCAM 2021: Day #27

Living while dying is a hard thing. Learning to balance treatments and side effects and the struggle of being a forever patient with life can suck every bit of energy from our increasingly frail bodies. Our organs and bones and tissues can only withstand so much. And our doctors and the treatments take us close … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #27 →

BCAM 2021: Day #26

I didn't know much about inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) until I started reading Anya Silver's poetry and was connected through her to Ginny Mason at the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Besides the fact that Anya's poetry has touched my life in so many ways, I am grateful for the information and advocacy about IBC … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #26 →