Press play to listen to the audio version of this post. The voiceover was generated by Speechify AI.
To Whom It May Concern:
For the first episode in my F*** Cancer F*** Fear series, I wanted to talk about my Arya Stark List.
#Nerdalert: For those of you who do not know Arya Stark, she is my favorite character from the Game of Thrones series.
Without giving away any spoilers, she has a list of individuals she wants to kill. She is so passionate about her mission to avenge that she verbally says this list of names over and over again.
When it comes to a cancer diagnosis, there is so much unknown, and sometimes it feels like we constantly have to rely so heavily on inner strength, hope, faith, and all the non-tangibles. It gets really tiring.
Throughout my journey, I remember deeply desiring proof and facts.
When I feel the fear coming on, I have my own list of breast cancer survivors that I met throughout my life who are not only 5, 10, 15 year survivors, but also 20+ year survivors.
Yes, recurrence is possible. But we always have to remember there are two sides to a coin. This list of breast cancer survivors are my proof that long-term survival is also possible.
We also have to remind ourselves that most of these women who are long term survivors were not a part of the social media era, so we don’t see as many of them in our feed. Don’t forget that they are out there, and they do exist!
My best friend’s mom, my colleague, my mentor, my colleague’s sister in law, my brother in law’s aunt, two of my mom’s coworkers, my anesthesiologist from my egg retrieval procedure, etc. were all diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age. They are now long term survivors. When I think of potential recurrence, I have to make a big effort to remember them.
When the what ifs, uncertainty, and fear, start to debilitate my life, I whip out my Arya Stark list of breast cancer survivor names, which I have saved in my Notes app (pictured below), and sometimes I even say these names out loud like Arya.
This list can be tailored to fit the specific type of fears you experience (i.e., survivors with hormone positive breast cancer, survivors with triple negative breast cancer, survivors who experienced recurrences multiple times and are currently thriving, breast cancer thrivers living with stage 4, etc.
Arya Stark is known for being headstrong and she refuses to let anyone or anything – no matter how powerful – push her around. She is my inspiration behind the first episode in my F*** Cancer F*** Fear Series.
Breast regards,
Michelle
P.S. The 8 episodes in my F*** Cancer F*** Fear series are linked below:
Episode 3: We Have Different DNA
Episode 4: Your Doctor and the Red Devil
