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.

BCAM 2021: Day #7

This was another shocking thing that I discovered in my own experiences. I'd assumed (wrongly) that most cancer was genetic and when my mom tested negative for BRCA 1 & 2 after her early cancer diagnosis, my sisters and I thought we had nothing to worry about. We also didn't fully understand the complexity of … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #7 →

BCAM 2021: Day #6

The narrative that mammograms save lives and that you are safe if you have a clear mammogram is just not always true. It's catchy and it's an objective, bright line that makes marketing and advertising easier. We've traded the shaded truth for a generally accurate slogan and a false sense of security. Bottom line? No … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #6 →

BCAM 2021; Day #5

Cancer grows because "normal cells" have mutated and become different. One thing that doesn't work inside cancer cells are the brakes that tells a cell when to die a natural death. Cancer cells proliferate without an end and they don't die naturally. And that keeps happening. The cancer cells keep mutating. And these mutations enable … Continue reading BCAM 2021; Day #5 →

BCAM 2021: Day #4

This is one of the facts that surprised me the most when I started getting into the nitty-gritty details of breast cancer after my own diagnosis. Understanding that there are so many different variables that make up the umbrella of the term "breast cancer," has helped me understand better why a cure hasn't been found … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #4 →

BCAM 2021: Day #3 & a LIVE roundtable webinar

We have some data points, some pieces of information that help us understand the whole picture of who is diagnosed with breast cancer and when. When a biopsy comes back positive for malignant breast cancer, that information is reported to various databases, depending on your location in the world. The next data point is typically … Continue reading BCAM 2021: Day #3 & a LIVE roundtable webinar →

BCAM 2021; Day #2

When I was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer in early 2017, I was already limping. At the time, I didn't think there was any connection between the lump I'd felt in my left breast and the limp I'd had for a few months and the pain I was having in my leg. Now I … Continue reading BCAM 2021; Day #2 →

BCAM 2021; Day #1

These numbers are scarier every time I read them and they are incomplete. We know a lot about the incidents of diagnosed breast cancer, but not so much about how many have an early stage diagnosis and then progress to Stage IV. We can extrapolate knowing how many are diagnosed and how many die since … Continue reading BCAM 2021; Day #1 →

Speaking our Truth

Truth is a big deal to me. From a personality and training perspective, I’m wired to look for and speak the truth. What I often forget to do is package the truth. But what other people don’t often understand is that I really do appreciate when others speak their truth, give their perspective, even if … Continue reading Speaking our Truth →

Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) 2021

October of 2021 is the fifth (5th) Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) since my Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) diagnosis in 2017 and that brings me ever closer to the milestone of living five (5) years with MBC. And yet, sometimes I think that looking for the milestones or putting any stock in reaching/achieving … Continue reading Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) 2021 →

When pain becomes chronic …

Pain. It's such a short word that encompasses so many things. Before Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC), I'd experienced some amount of pain. I got into a few car accidents. Dislocated a wrist. I'd had braces, twice, along with some dental surgery. When no longer very young, I had two c-sections and a 26 … Continue reading When pain becomes chronic … →