Community Member Spotlight: Meet Linda M.

We’re highlighting people in the metastatic cancer community. We spoke with Linda, who shared her personal story about her recent diagnosis and how Advancedbreastcancer.net's online community has been helpful throughout this experience.

In a few sentences, please describe how & when were you diagnosed with advanced or metastatic breast cancer?

I was diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer in January of 2020. About a week later a CT scan revealed that I had metastasis in my lungs.

What subtype of breast cancer do you have?

My first diagnosis was HER2 positive. Treatment for that shrank my breast tumor, but it resumed growing when chemo was finished, and we switched to only targeted therapy. After my mastectomy, the pathology report showed triple negative.

In a few sentences, what different types of information and support were most helpful when you were newly diagnosed?

My oncologist provided a lot of detailed information about the chemotherapy medications I would be receiving, which was very helpful and allowed me to solve some problems on my own. And my church family rallied around me to provide practical support like rides and meals, as well as spiritual and moral support!!

What is your favorite part about AdvancedBreastCancer.net?

AdvancedBreastCancer.net is focused on people with advanced or metastatic breast cancer, so people here understand some of the struggles of treatment with no end in sight, different treatment strategies, and facing your own mortality a bit better than groups for all stages. I also like the questions and answers and being able to compare my opinions and experiences with those of others.

Please describe how online support has helped you.

After the pandemic eased up a bit, I was able to join an in-person group which I am glad for, but I quickly learned that there are advantages to being able to go online anytime and find someone there or being able to leave a message or comment and someone would reply within minutes or hours, while the in-person group is only one hour a month!