By Adriana Ermter
In our monthly column, senior writer and editor Adriana Ermter shares her personal experiences with breast cancer
Breast cancer doesn't just occur overnight. It lurks in our cells, mutating and growing until it shows up as a lump. At least that's how my breast cancer worked. God knows how long it had been in my body, waiting to announce itself before I found it. It’s not something I ever expected to have either, predominantly because I don’t have a familial link. Thin hair, yes. Good facial collagen, check. My mom’s thyroid issues, maybe. My dad’s bad knees, already have one. But breast cancer? It wasn’t a blip on my radar.
According to breast cancer experts worldwide however, inclusive of the BreastCancer.org, it should’ve been, as 85 per cent of breast cancers occur in women with no family history of the disease. The Government of Canada's public health services says one in eight women will have breast cancer in their lifetime. At any time. Because despite the American Cancer Society noting the median age of a diagnosis at 62 years, younger women are also susceptible. And when I discovered these not-so-fun facts, I spiralled into a dark headspace.
Without a familial link, I blamed myself for my breast cancer. For tanning on the trampoline beneath a thick layer of baby oil throughout my teens. For drinking way too many vodka martinis and smoking menthol cigarettes in my 20s and 30s. For decades’ worth of dating all the wrong men; some on repeat. For holding my emotions in. For gaining weight. For getting divorced. For being on the pill. For not having children—my list of perceived missteps and horrors was long. And yet, as my oncologist kept reminding me, breast cancer is random and most often without rhyme or reason. I had to stop blaming myself.
This was not (and sometimes still isn’t) easy. I blamed and shamed my way through surgery and treatment. As a result, I held my breast cancer diagnosis close to my heart, not really talking about it or sharing about my experiences with anyone beyond my tight circle of confidants. It wasn’t until a friend pushed me to write an article about my experience with breast cancer that I started to crack open and search for a different way to go through it.
Strangely, as I did, the idea of creating a purpose and passion about having cancer came to me. Not in the romantic sense of purpose and passion, but in how I could shift my focus and energy towards having a healthier perspective about having breast cancer. I started by channelling my emotions into writing about my breast cancer experiences here, for you, for me and for the Canadian Breast Cancer Network’s community, in the hope of providing insight to women like me. This writing was and still is cathartic and helps me focus less on myself and more on others and supporting them, than being stuck with my own not-so-great thoughts and feelings. This mindset does not come naturally to me, I work on it, because life, especially one with a cancer diagnosis, is bumpy. But when I type each word, I feel less isolated and more purposeful, and this releases some of the stress I feel and connects me to other women. I need that. I’m single and live alone.
In 2020, I listened to Adam Grant’s 2019 podcast, Work Life, explored “The Perils of Following Your Career Passion” and I felt like his words really aligned with my health. In the podcast’s episode, Grant explores how passion in the workplace is cultivated—not discovered. When I related his approach to my experience with breast cancer, it resonated deeply. I had no passion for the disease. I didn’t want to have breast cancer. I didn’t want to be another statistic. I didn’t want to take Tamoxifen. But I was diagnosed, I am now a statistic, and I did take Tamoxifen. And now, while I don’t want to, I worry about having a potential recurrence. All of this sucks. Yet, when I followed Grant’s advice and chose to develop my own kind of passion and purpose around my diagnosis (which took forever and I continue to strive for because I am stubborn and this thought process was/is not autopilot for me), it shifted the way I think. Here’s what I learned:
1. Engage in my health
The idea that passion or purpose magically appear is a myth. When I was first diagnosed, I didn’t feel passionate about “fighting” cancer. Honestly, I felt number and more overwhelmed than anything else. Fight mode, thankfully, does happen to be my autopilot. So, when I applied fight mode to researching breast cancer, its statistics, treatments and everything else I wanted to learn so that I could better write articles for other women with a breast cancer diagnosis, it helped. And the more engaged I became, the more time I invested on behalf of others, the more I began to also take control of own my health.
Why This Helps: Shifting your focus from waiting for inspiration to actively cultivating passion can make daunting tasks, like going to daily treatment sessions and writing lists of questions before each doctor’s appointment, feel purposeful. When it comes to healthcare, creating more passion means being an active participant—asking questions, understanding your options and finding what truly motivates you to show up for yourself every day.
Steps to Take:
- Educate Yourself: Start small. Look into credible resources about breast cancer and treatment options. Knowledge builds confidence.
- Set Personal Goals: Maybe it’s drinking more water, moving your body a little each day or finding ways to manage stress. I still like going to bed early and waking early. Small steps lead to progress.
- Connect with Others: Join a support group or connect with someone who has been through what you’re facing. I had one person I really trusted, who was my age and had gone through everything I was experiencing. While we knew of each other because we had both worked for women’s magazines, we’d never actually met until she, after reading my first article about my breast cancer diagnosis, reached out on Instagram. At the time, I was going through radiation treatment, and she was exactly what I needed. Having gone through breast cancer a year before me, she knew what I was dealing with and feeling. She was proof that I could do this (like me, we were both diagnosed with breast cancer before the ink on both of our divorce papers was dry), and that I was mentally strong enough to keep going. She’s now one of my most cherished friends.
2. Accept that perfection isn’t real
One of my biggest hurdles was learning to silence my inner critic. Breast cancer doesn’t come with a guidebook and my mind insisted on making everything my fault. I blamed myself for getting cancer, for not being more proactive, for not having a husband to hold my hand throughout the process, for not breezing through treatment. It didn’t help when, a friend of a friend told me how much she enjoyed her daily 7:30am radiation appointments, because it got her into the office early. Like, WTF?! When I heard that, I wanted to throat punch her a little bit. Here’s the thing: No one is perfect, and no one handles breast cancer perfectly. So, what really matters instead, is showing up for yourself as best as you can, day by day. For me, that meant feeling prepared by making sure I had a bag of GoldFish crackers and a light-hearted book in my purse, along with lots of toilet paper in the bathroom and an extra bag of cat food under the kitchen sink at all times. Covering the basics and saying fuck-it to everything else was my superpower.
Why This Helps: In Grant’s podcast he notes that focusing on strengths gives you a sense of agency. It makes sense. When you’re navigating a health crisis, perfection is unattainable. Strength, on the other hand, be it having a stocked fridge or having friends on speed dial who will listen at length or even better, momentarily distract you from your life by talking about themselves for 30 minutes straight and not asking you one question, is real and uniquely yours.
Steps to Take:
- Identify Your Strengths: Maybe you’re an organized planner or simply someone who shows up with resilience. Write them down. Celebrate them.
- Redefine Success: Success isn’t about doing everything “right.” It’s about doing what works for you, whether that’s making it to a doctor’s appointment on your own, asking for help or resting when you need to.
- Practice Self-Compassion: Treat yourself like a friend. Celebrate small wins, forgive mistakes and acknowledge the hard work you’re doing. I still play the blame game, but I’m slowly getting better at being kinder to myself.
3. Align Passion with Purpose
Grant’s podcast emphasized that passion flourishes when aligned with purpose, not when it becomes an obsession. For me, this meant shifting my focus from “beating cancer” to living a life that felt meaningful and knowing that I was doing all the things I could do to feel better (including rubbing lavender oil on my chest at night to help relax so that I could sleep better) —regardless of my diagnosis.
This change in perspective was a game-changer. Instead of fixating on what I couldn’t control, which felt overwhelming, I began to think about how I could use my experience to live a more intentional life. I found purpose in small acts of self-care, in sharing my story to help others, coaching artistic swimming (formerly known as synchronized swimming) athletes, taking short walks in the morning, distracting myself by watching a feel-good tv show about a competitive cheerleading team and thinking about all of the things in my life that I was grateful for, like my snuggly cat Trixie, (she has since passed and I now love on my two fluffy cats Murphy and Olive), my extra soft pillow, sweatpants and my friends who brought me premade meals.
Why This Helps: Purpose anchors you, giving you a reason to persevere even when things feel hard. When you align your health efforts with a greater sense of meaning, they become less daunting and more sustainable.
Steps to Take:
- Find Your "Why": What motivates you to stay healthy? Maybe it’s your kids, your furry children, your partner or the desire to travel and see the world. Write it down and revisit your “why” often.
- Incorporate Joy: Purpose doesn’t have to be grand. It can be as simple as savoring a good meal you didn’t have to make, sitting on your balcony and watching the sun rise or laughing with your friend about all the funny men’s dating profiles (what’s with all of the Trans-Am, shirtless flexing and fish pictures?) on the dating apps.
- Give Back: Sharing your journey can be healing. Whether it’s journaling, listening to other women’s stories in a breast cancer support group or simply being a phone call away for another woman with a breast cancer diagnosis, finding ways to help others creates a ripple effect of purpose.
When I think about how far I’ve come since my diagnosis, I no longer see breast cancer as the enemy, but rather as a part of my life’s story that has shown me how strong I truly am. Grant’s insights have also reminded me that passion isn’t a lightning bolt; it’s a fire I need to tend to. By taking small, deliberate steps to engage in my health; by embracing my strengths over my shortcomings and by aligning my efforts with a deeper purpose; and probably most importantly, by forgiving myself when I spiral into negative thoughts (because this still happens), I continue to cultivate resilience, joy and hope. And trust me, I need it.
Adriana Ermter is a multi-award-winning writer and editor. Her work can be read in Sotheby’s Insight, Living Luxe and IN Magazine, as well as online at 29Secrets.com, RethinkBreastCancer.ca and AmongMen.com. The former Beauty Director for FASHION and former Editor-in-Chief for Salon Magazine, Childview and Figure Skater Fitness 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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