Making Memories While Living with Advanced Breast Cancer

"Kate gets free stuff all the time . . . we are NOT helping her at all." That was the statement someone said about me right after we found out we were gifted a respite vacation to our dream location in Hawaii.

In fact, as a person living with incurable advanced breast cancer, there are many organizations willing and wanting to help families by sending them on these types of trips, providing Christmas presents, or even assisting financially. I have been fortunate enough to have gone on many trips and have received incredible family support at Christmas just about every year since I was diagnosed.

What advanced breast cancer steals from me

While normally I pay no heed to rude comments, this one stung deep. This "free stuff" isn’t actually free. My kids, my husband, and I have paid for this time and time again—not monetarily, but with something even more valuable than money: time. The severe emotional toll of this condition is a price we pay every single day.

The reality of facing difficult conversations

Many people have never had to sit down and tell their four-year-olds that they have cancer. They have never had to hear their three-year-old cry in agony for them as they lay sick in bed from chemotherapy, unable to move.

Furthermore, most parents have not had to miss their daughter turning eight because they were in the hospital. Moms do not normally miss Mother’s Day due to an infection they are battling. Wives typically are not told on the day of their husband’s birthday that they have cancer and could die.

No, these things are not normal, but my family has experienced them more times than I can count. I hate to even admit this... but I spend more time in a hospital setting or sick in bed than most of my fellow moms.

How cancer steals precious time

Cancer has very literally stolen time from my family and me—time that I cannot get back. The long-term effects of growing up with a parent who has a terminal illness are apparent in my children.

No matter how I have tried to prepare them, they each suffer from the lasting emotional toll of anxiety, depression, and sadness.

The American Cancer Society lays out age-by-age ways you can help your children navigate through this disease. One way we cope is by enjoying making brilliant memories with the help of nonprofits that focus on family support.

We can see and experience things we never otherwise would have been able to—memories that will outlive cancer.

Creating beautiful memories amidst the pain

So the next time you see me on social media—maybe on a beach or at a zoo, thanking a nonprofit or friends and family for getting me there out of the goodness of their hearts—and you want to say, "I would never help Kate, she gets free stuff all the time," remember that I have paid for that a thousand lifetimes over.

I allow the public, much like anyone else, to see the good times. It is not often that I share the things I miss out on because of cancer. I do not share out of pride but rather out of shame.

If you really knew how much of an absent mother I feel like, would you think of me differently? I don’t want that. I share the beautifully curated times more because I want to help families like mine find hope, and because I want my children, my friends, and my family to look back and say, "Even though Kate was sick, she made some really great memories."

Nonprofits that help families make memories

Below, you'll find a list of my top respite nonprofits that help families in any location:

• One Day to Remember
• Leslie’s Week
• Little Pink Houses of Hope
• Inheritance of Hope
• Ally’s Wish
• Do It For the Love
• For Pete’s Sake
• A Week Away
• The Dream Foundation
• Epic Experience
• Stella’s Wish
• First Descents
• Harmony Hill

Would you add any other organizations to the list?