Misty Simon

I was diagnosed at age 30 (exactly 3 years ago on Jan 17th, 2007) with invasive breast cancer. There was no family history, I was healthy and thought I’d done everything to protect myself. I underwent a mastectomy which revealed positive lymph nodes. I was pretty lucky and it was only 2 out of 28 and there was no evidence of cancer anywhere else. I ended up being Stage IIB, Her2 neu +, ER/PR-. I am a nurse and full time mom and wife. At the time of diagnosis my kids were 3 and 15 months. It was so hard to not be able to pick them up or explain mommy’s boo-boos.

After healing, I had 4 rounds of AC, twelve weeks of Taxol and one year of Herceptin. I was so tired, but I continued to work part-time because I refused to let cancer take anything else away from me. We were so blessed with friends who drove me to treatments, made us dinners and watched the kids. I was also very blessed to have a loving, supportive husband who always thought I was beautiful and even shaved his head before I lost my hair so the kids would be used to a bald parent!

Now, let’s not forget the radiation and burns! Later I had reconstructive surgery and have been enrolled in a clinical trial to test biphosphinates in their role in preventing future bone mets. Now I go for scans every 6 months. I hate having had breast cancer, but God blessed me in many ways and I feel very fortunate to be where I am now.