Meet Carly Fauth: triple-negative breast cancer survivor

How did your cancer journey begin?

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2024. I was taking a shower when I felt a super tiny bump. I usually don't do self-exams, but I happened to notice it. At first, I tried to convince myself that it would go away or that I would feel the same thing on the other side.

Eventually, I went to my doctor, who thought it was probably just a cyst. However, she wanted to rule everything out, so she scheduled an ultrasound. Since she wasn't particularly concerned, there was no rush to get it done.

When I went in for the ultrasound, I could tell something wasn't right just by looking at the technician's facial expressions. Then the doctor came in, and I ended up having a biopsy. That's when I received my breast cancer diagnosis in February 2024.

What did your treatment journey look like after your diagnosis?

It took a while for us to figure out exactly what my treatment plan would look like because there were some complications along the way. I actually broke the MRI machine! I was inside it when the machine malfunctioned, which made everything more complicated.

During my imaging, they found the tumor, but there was also a shadow that appeared to be another mass. However, when I went for additional imaging, they couldn't find that second mass. There was a lot of uncertainty about what was actually going on.

In the meantime, we discovered that I have a CHEK2 genetic mutation, which is what caused my breast cancer. My cancer was also triple-negative, which is a very aggressive type of breast cancer.

After gathering all of this information, and because there was still this supposed second mass that nobody could locate, we decided that I would have a double mastectomy first since my original tumor was so small.

I chose to have a double mastectomy with flat closure, meaning I decided not to have reconstruction.

After surgery, I went through 16 weeks of the most aggressive chemotherapy. I was young, and I wanted to do everything I could to get rid of the cancer. My mindset was that I wanted to blast it out of my body.

How did cancer affect your mental health, and what helped you cope throughout your journey?

Exercise is my biggest platform, and it played a huge role in my cancer journey. I was a fitness instructor before my diagnosis, and I decided to use my own experience as an experiment to see whether exercise could really help with the side effects of chemotherapy, potentially improve the effectiveness of treatment, and support my overall health.

I believe exercise is incredibly important for your physical health, especially when you're going through chemotherapy. Chemo eats muscle for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! But exercise is also really important for your mental health.

Another thing I think is incredibly important is paying attention to the people you surround yourself with. Even before receiving a cancer diagnosis, everyone should think about who's in their corner. Are these people who are going to lift you up or drag you down? It's important to recognize that ahead of time because the people around you can have such a big impact on how you handle difficult situations.

I also believe in trying to find something positive in every difficult experience. I don't like to say that everything happens for a reason, but I do think there's a takeaway, or a "golden nugget," in every hard thing you go through.

If you can focus on making lemonade out of lemons, it can really help you move forward. Maybe your experience teaches you something about yourself, or maybe it gives you an opportunity to help other people. Finding something meaningful in what you've been through can be incredibly empowering.

I think reframing the situation and looking for those lessons can make a huge difference in how you get through it.

Another important thing for me was making sure that cancer didn't become my entire identity. Everyone has to deal with their diagnosis in their own way, and I completely respect that. But personally, I didn't want "Fit Fun Carly" to become all about cancer and cancer recovery.

Yes, cancer is a big part of my story, but it's not my entire story, and I didn't want it to define who I am.

How did having cancer change your relationships with friends and family?

I think one of the biggest things you realize when you're diagnosed with cancer is who truly shows up for you.

When you're first diagnosed, everyone kind of crawls out of the woodwork because everyone thinks you're dying, or at least that's how it felt to me. People get scared, and they want to reach out and say what they want to say to you. They care about you, and that's lovely, but I think what's really important is paying attention to the people who show up for you and continue showing up after everything is over.

I don't mean any offense to the people who reach out while you're going through treatment and then fade into the distance. That's completely fine. They were doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, and I appreciate that.

But there's something really special about the people who may not have been your closest friends before your diagnosis, and then suddenly they show up in a huge way. Not only do they support you during treatment, but they stay in your life afterward. Those are the people who genuinely care about you beyond just your cancer diagnosis.

On the other hand, there were one or two people who I thought were really good friends who, for whatever reason, couldn't handle what I was going through.

I understand that cancer can be difficult for other people to process, too. If someone had come to me and said that it was really hard for them to handle and that they couldn't be there for me, I would have understood that. But to just disappear without saying anything was different.

My feeling is that if you left me during one of the hardest times in my life, you shouldn't expect to come back afterward and pick up our friendship where we left off.

Ultimately, cancer solidified my really good friendships. It showed me who was genuinely there for me and helped me recognize which relationships weren't what I thought they were.

What advice would you give to others who are facing a cancer diagnosis or going through a similar experience?

My biggest piece of advice is to get fit now. Start exercising now, before you're faced with something difficult.

If you're someone who hasn't received a cancer diagnosis, I'm not saying that you're going to get cancer. But being in good physical and mental shape can make a huge difference when you're faced with any kind of challenge. It's important to do that work ahead of time so you're better prepared for whatever life throws at you.

And I know exercise is my platform, but I also think we need to change the way we talk about movement during cancer treatment.

If you're facing a diagnosis and your doctor tells you to rest, I'm not saying that rest isn't important. Of course it is. But I think even doctors need to change some of the language they use when speaking to patients because movement and exercise are just as important as rest.

Rest shouldn't automatically be the default all the time. Keeping your body moving is important for so many reasons, both physically and mentally.

Another really important piece of advice is not to think of a cancer diagnosis as a death sentence.Don't look at somebody else's cancer journey and assume that yours is going to be the same. You are your own person, and the way cancer affects you is specific to you.

I also encourage people not to go down the rabbit hole of Googling everything that could possibly happen to them. Instead, try to find inspirational stories that make you feel better and give you hope. If you're going to Google something, Google stories of hope.

Don't spend your time searching for your type of cancer and reading about every terrible thing that could potentially happen, because chances are, those things won't happen to you. Focus on the positive stories, the possibilities, and the things that give you hope as you move forward.