Cancer, Purpose, and the Hardest Lesson

During a few years of triple-negative breast cancer treatment — the most aggressive form, with the highest rates of recurrence — Paige and her husband sat down and made a deliberate decision. They could concentrate on just one thing. They kept city council. She deferred her master's program enrollment. She scaled back her professional life. She focused on public service because it gave her purpose on the dark days. Her husband says now that he believes it kept her alive. But the biggest lesson she took from the whole experience was unexpected: 'The hardest thing is not to have cancer yourself — but to love someone who has cancer.' She watched her loved ones suffer alongside her. She saw the helplessness they felt. The uncertainty. The stress. That — not the chemo, not losing her hair, not the steroids — was the most difficult part. At two and a half years post-treatment, her risk of recurrence is declining. At five years, it will be no greater than anyone else's. She says it's going great. Her hair grew back.