Author Katherine Russell Rich<\/p>\n
Now there probably aren\u2019t a lot of Web sites where the announcement that you\u2019re around and breathing would cause anyone to take notice, let alone respond. But this is a site for people with Stage 4 breast cancer, something I\u2019ve had for 17 years. <\/a><\/p>\n The average life expectancy with the diagnosis is 30 months, so this is a little like saying I\u2019m 172 years old: seemingly impossible. But it\u2019s not. I first found I had the illness in 1988, and it was rediagnosed as Stage 4 in 1993. That\u2019s 22 years all together, which is the reason I post each year on the anniversary of the day I learned my cancer<\/font><\/a> was back: to let women know that it happens, that people do live with this for years. <\/p>\n I tell them that when the cancer returned, it came on so fast, spread so quickly, that I was given a year or two to live. Within months, the disease turned vicious. It started breaking bones from within, and was coming close to severing my spinal cord. <\/p>\n Nothing was working, till a doctor tried a hormone treatment no one used much anymore, and the cancer turned and retreated, snarling. It remains sluggish but active. Every so often, it rears its head; when it does, we switch treatments and it slides back down. In that way, I stay alive. <\/p>\n I tell them: you just don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author Katherine Russell Rich Now there probably aren\u2019t a lot of Web sites where the announcement that you\u2019re around and breathing would cause anyone to take notice, let alone respond. But this is a site for people with Stage 4 breast cancer, something I\u2019ve had for 17 years. The average life expectancy with the diagnosis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-lymphoma-and-related-medical-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5242,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3454\/revisions\/5242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n