Breast cancer through the eyes of a marketer and daughter

In support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I'm sharing my experience with breast cancer this year. I hope you'll visit the LARVOL blog to see breast cancer through the eyes of other colleagues and our team as a whole!

Here's my story:

I learned more about breast cancer this year than I ever imagined I would need to learn.?First, as a new member of the LARVOL team, I got a crash course in biomarkers, Kaplan-Meier Curves, and?precision medicine treatments?as I learned the ins and outs of our oncology products. I sat?in meeting after meeting,?in awe of the experts I had the pleasure of working with and learning from.??

Just as I was beginning to grasp the vocabulary of?the job,?the conversation moved a lot closer to home.?In?May, I became the daughter of a breast cancer patient.?As my mom experienced?appointments, tests, surgeries, and radiation?treatments?throughout the year,?the rest of us just had to wait. I say “just” with a good measure of sarcasm, as it was the very?least?we could do. But it was truly a difficult task. My sisters, my dad, our partners, and colleagues, and friends. There’s no feeling quite as helpless as taking care of your mother. I simply tried to do what I thought she would do for me, and to mimic the ways?she’s?taken care of us all for so long.?

I’m happy to report that she finished radiation treatments just before October began and that all scans are looking great!?My hope?for the future is to better understand the ways?families and loved ones can support breast cancer patients throughout the process of diagnosis and treatment. I know the road is longer and more difficult for many, and I’m grateful to be able to see that through new eyes today.??

What about you? How have you experienced breast cancer this year? What hopes do you have for the future?