By Adriana Ermter
In our monthly column, senior writer and editor Adriana Ermter shares her personal experiences with breast cancer
I’m an open book about breast cancer. I’ve chosen to be vocal because I want to wipe out stigma, shine light on little-talked about topics and help other women feel less alone. When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, it didn’t cross my mind that one day I’d want to share all the details about my personal experiences with cancer by writing a monthly column, but life is weird and here I am. And I’m grateful. Especially when I receive a direct message on my Instagram from a woman I don’t know, who is dealing with her own breast cancer diagnosis and looking for support.
Newly diagnosed, this woman is like me (and maybe you), and feeling super lost in her emotions. She’s trying to come to terms with having cancer and all the feelings that come with it. When I read her words, they resonated with me, despite my being five years cancer-free. And the more I read the further they pulled me back in time to the day when I first received my cancer diagnosis.
Diagnosis
I didn’t cry when I found out. It was more surreal than that, more visceral, like the room and everything inside me went still and I floated outside of myself. Panic came later. After the results of my biopsy came in and my doctor shared my cancer’s stage and grade, my recurrence potential and my treatment plan. Then, I was sent to do a whole bunch of tests on my vital organs. Afterwards, I remember sitting in a dive bar with my best friend drinking a vodka martini at 11am. All I could think was, “I have cancer”. But I couldn’t pin it down to make sense of it. So, I had another martini and then a third. I’ve never felt more sober in my life.
During those first days after my diagnosis, the fear of dying didn’t occur to me yet. It was more about the collapse of everything I’d thought was certain—my health, my ability to work, my career goals, my future plans. With the ink still drying on my divorce papers, having cancer and being newly alone felt like a gut punch. How would I do it? Could I still pay for my mortgage, take care of my beloved, elderly cat who had her own health issues and be really, really sick? I felt fucked, like getting divorced and having to rewrite my future and start over wasn’t enough. I wasn’t sure how I would cope. A 2024 study published in the National Library of Medicine shows that over 85% of women experience high anxiety like this immediately following a breast cancer diagnosis. I hid my feelings never talked about them with anyone, but I felt anxious every single day. Harvard Medical School explains this reaction as the amygdala, the brain’s alarm bell which is wired to detect threat—and cancer sounds like the ultimate one—which lights up while the part of our brain that handles reason and calm thoughts goes offline. It’s normal. We aren’t built to feel safe in uncertainty.
Waiting, Surgery, Treatment, More Waiting
And then comes the waiting. Waiting to find out the grade, the stage, what kind of breast cancer it is, what treatment is needed, how the surgery went, if you’ll ever have a recurrence… Waiting for any and all information about your cancer diagnosis, even when you’re cancer free and going for annual scans, is its own kind of torture. Studies published in Patient Education and Counseling and in the National Library of Medicine found that anxiety spikes higher during the waiting period for biopsy or pathology results than at almost any other point in treatment. Not knowing can fill our minds with stories, most of them worst-case scenarios.
Before my surgery, I felt another wave of panic. Not about the operation itself, but about what I’d wake up to. Would I still recognize my body? What would my right boob look like? Would I still feel like me? During treatment, my fear shifted again—this time to exhaustion, to side effects, to watching myself fade, age and transform into someone I didn’t recognize in the mirror. Some of this was due to treatment and medication, some was a result of the stress that accompanies cancer. An article published in 2025 in BMC Cancer Journal found that more than half of women in treatment experience clinical anxiety. It’s not weakness—it’s biology. Our bodies are under siege, our hormones are off-balance, our sense of control is shredded.
Recovery
When my months-long treatment ended, I thought I’d finally relax and be my old self again. Instead, I felt lost. Recovery sounds peaceful, but it’s not. It’s quiet, and in that quiet, fear sneaks back in. Every follow-up scan made and still makes my chest tighten. Even now, five years later, cancer-free, I still felt the ripple of panic before every annual check. I’m in the highest percentile for recurrence, so the anxiety is real, but I’m not an anomaly. A 2019 study published in the American Cancer Society Journals shows that fear of recurrence affects up to 70% of breast cancer survivors.
What I’ve learned is that these feelings, the panic, helplessness, the crazy thoughts that crash through at 4:00 a.m. are part of experience. They surface when I feel out of my control, when I don’t have all the answers, when I feel like I’m not being seen or heard and when I have to wait for the next scan, the next test, the next result. They don’t mean I’m weak or dramatic.
Managing All the Feels
I’ve also learned that pushing those feelings away doesn’t work, so I try to manage them as best as I can.
I swim and I walk. There’s something about the bilateral movement that calms me. I’ve always used it to overcome or work through writer’s block, so when I was diagnosed with cancer I figured I might as well try it with this too. Swimming soon became out of the question, but walking was still possible, so I did and I continue to every time I need to. The Mayo Clinic calls it meditation in motion, a type of bilateral stimulation that can help the brain process stress and signals safety. BreastCancer.org notes that regular walking can ease anxiety and also improve treatment outcomes. It’s small, but it helps me feel like I have a little control over my health, my life.
At night, I take a magnesium supplement before bed, a trick my GP shared with me when I was going through my divorce. It works with my cancer anxiety too, as it supports relaxation and better sleep, and better sleep means my nervous system doesn’t go as bonkers during the day. An article published by the UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience shows that magnesium helps regulate cortisol, the stress hormone that keeps us in fight-or-flight mode. (Just make sure to always talk with your doctor before considering supplements.)
When the “what ifs” start spiraling, I write. Not for anyone to read, just to get the fear and crap out of my head. Handwriting it all into a notebook gives it shape and once it has shape, it seems less overwhelming. The Canadian Cancer Society agrees and recommends journaling during treatment and recovery for exactly that reason. Putting feelings to paper also engages the rational part of the brain that anxiety shuts down, which is always a good thing.
And sometimes, I just sit or lay down and breathe. I don’t appreciate others telling me to “just breathe,” but I will admit it works. Plus, it’s easy. I close my eyes and focus on inhaling and exhaling or if I’m in public or driving my car, I’ll just take a few deep breaths and hold them in before slowly releasing the air.
The truth is, living with and beyond breast cancer isn’t about banishing fear. I honestly don’t believe that’s possible, but it can be about making room for it, all of it. I’m also trying to reframe how I view and react to my cancer emotions and how I can still feel them without letting them take over me. It’s a process and sometimes I fail at it completely, but all I can do is keep trying. Because healing, I’ve learned, isn’t just about surviving breast cancer—it’s about giving myself compassion for all the feelings I still have and for learning how to live as the new me with an open heart, even when I feel uncertain.
Adriana Ermter is a multi award-winning writer and editor. Her work can be read in IN Magazine, 29Secrets.com, RethinkBreastCancer.ca and AmongMen.com. The former Beauty Director for FASHION and Editor-in-Chief for Salon and Childview magazines lives in Toronto with her two very spoiled rescue cats, Murphy and Olive. You can follow Adriana on Instagram @AdrianaErmter
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