Meet Kirstie Blanchette: Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Survivor & Cancer Coach

Meet Kirstie Blanchette, a triple-negative breast cancer survivor who chose to enter the world of cancer coaching to help other women find their way after cancer. 

How did your cancer journey begin?

In 2015, I was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer at only 35 years old. My mom had breast cancer before me, so I’d had the possibility of getting cancer on my mind for a while. I was still shocked when I received my diagnosis, and was immediately sent for genetic testing. 

Before I received my genetic testing results, I started chemo and had my lumpectomy. The genetic testing came back positive for the BRCA1 gene. This gene gives you a really high chance of having breast cancer and ovarian cancer in your lifetime. I opted to have my ovaries removed as a precaution, which put me into surgical menopause at 36. The menopause was the most horrendous bit of it all for me. 

Since my initial diagnosis, I have not had any recurrences. It was just the impact of the initial treatment and surgeries that continue to affect me. Coming into menopause at such a young age was a massive life changer.

10 years later, it’s been quite the journey. My cancer wasn’t hormone-driven; it was triple-negative. I was allowed to have Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), but I had to fight for that. Going into menopause when you’ve just gone through the trauma of cancer is hard. Your nervous system and brain are already all over the place, and then you’re put into menopause. It’s a double whammy. I had six months where I just felt absolutely crazy. My mental health was all over the place, along with the different side effects that come with the menopause. I fought to get HRT to try to regain my personal quality of life, in spite of potential risks. Then I made a lot of other lifestyle changes. 

To this day, I still have to go for scans and other regular checks. Just the other day I went in for a doctor's appointment about back pain. In a non-cancer patient my age, they may tell me to do some stretches and take paracetamol. Because I have had cancer, I have to go for a full spinal scan to ensure that everything is okay. 

Right after my cancer experience, I went for so many scans because I was so convinced that my cancer was going to come back. I probably went a bit far with those. In the last 10 years, I’ve been working to find what works for me. You have to find your toolkit to get through day-to-day. Making changes to your nutrition, exercise, movement, mental health, and emotional well-being has to come together in one big melting pot for you to be in a better place.

I haven’t had any issues with cancer since my initial diagnosis, but I deal with a lot of long-term side effects. My joints are a bit of a nightmare. I’m 45 now and yet sometimes I feel like I’m 90 with painful joints, tight muscles, and fatigue. Now that I work in the cancer community, it can be quite triggering for me emotionally.

But overall, my cancer experience led me to discover what I wanted to do for a career. When I was diagnosed, I was working in hospitality, running a busy restaurant as general manager. They very kindly let me take a step back while I was having my treatment because that’s not the kind of job you can do while you’re having chemo and recovering from surgeries. I took on more head office roles, but I started changing mentally. When you go through cancer, your brain and everything change. You don’t always want to live the exact same life after cancer as you did before cancer. 

I actually went away for six weeks and travelled around Croatia and Italy to decide “What do I want now? What do I want to do with my life?” I decided to get into cancer services and try to help people who had gone through what I’d been through.

Going through the treatment was obviously very hard, but for me, it was life after cancer that I found so much harder. You’re not told what to expect right after treatment finishes. You’re just kind of told, “Off you pop! Here you go, live your life.” In reality, you’re suffering from lots of side effects. Your emotions are frayed, and you don’t know what’s going on. You’re searching for answers and always living in fear of the cancer coming back. For me, that was the struggle. I wanted to help women and started to train to become a life coach.

For my coaching diploma, I had to find case studies of my own. Since I was working at my local hospital’s cancer well-being centre, they very kindly let me work with breast cancer patients at the hospital. I worked with patients who were six months to a year out of treatment and gave them six one-to-one coaching sessions with me. I helped them take a look at how they actively feel post-cancer. Counseling is more focused on looking back at the emotions or trauma to process them, but my coaching was focused on guiding them towards the future. All of my clients wanted to make job, lifestyle, and relationship changes, and I helped them figure out how to do so. I guided them through little non-overwhelming steps towards their goals.

Things like self-compassion and rebuilding self-esteem had to be built. After cancer, you have to learn how to start loving and respecting your body again after all the changes it has been through. Each woman comes with something completely different. Age plays a factor as well. Women at different stages of life deal with different challenges, such as fertility. The NHS doesn’t give this issue enough time; it is just there to save your life, not help you with the rest of life afterwards. Many people mention lack of funding as the reason why this isn’t being done, but I think that’s short-sighted. Everyone who has had cancer is a functioning member of society, and you want everyone in society to be doing well, contributing, and living the best life they can. By not giving cancer patients the support they need to build themselves back up, you are not truly helping them as an entire person.

If you think about the rates of recurrence, you suddenly get very scared about how to live your life. “I’ve got to be super healthy to protect myself.” Yet, you’re not told what to do specifically to prevent recurrence. There is so much conflicting evidence on what constitutes a healthy life, but you have this urge to do whatever it takes after cancer.

Mental Health and Cancer: Let’s Talk About It

Going through cancer is a trauma. People talk about it as such a lot now, but many still don’t recognize how much trauma it actually is to go through all of that. When you’re going through treatment, you just put your head down and get through it. You go into survivorship mode. When everything’s finished, that’s when the emotional and mental health issues can start. You think, “Whoa, what just happened?” Your brain starts to catch up and process everything. It’s incredibly common to be left with some mental health issues after what’s happened. The biggest issue that my clients struggle with is fear of recurrence. You’ve been through this awful thing, and then you’re told that it could come back, you just don’t know when. You’re left in panic mode, feeling as if it is going to come back right away. Cancer treatment leaves you with aches and pains and feelings in your body that you didn’t have before. Your brain immediately thinks that every pain is cancer coming back. 

Finding support for that fear of recurrence, whether it be from professionals or your peers, is so important. Talking to someone who says, “Oh my God, I feel like that too,” can help you feel so much better. You know it’s normal. When you bottle it up to deal with those feelings on your own, you end up thinking you’re crazy. You need to hear from your peers to be able to feel normal again. 

Cancer takes away your control and forces you to hand it over to other people. You’re in a medical bubble, and then you come out and don’t have control anymore. You also don’t have the support system of doctors and nurses. “How am I going to find my own control over my life again?” Some people find that control in nutrition, exercise, or their emotions. 

I always tell my clients “Get yourself a mental health toolkit, things that work just for you. It’s not universal.” We’re all diffferent, we’re all unique. What works for you? Is it being out in nature? Is it sharing how you’re feeling? Is it doing breath work? Whatever you can find, even punching a bag in the gym, can work if it makes you feel better.

When it comes to my own story, I’d say that severe anxiety came for me. I had never really felt anxious before in that way. I didn’t understand what was going on. I tried medication for a little bit, but in the end, I found other things that worked for me. I meditate regularly now and make sure that I’ve got time for me. You have to be able to sense inside yourself when you are dealing with too much at once. You can head into burnout when you get overwhelmed. Being able to sense when you need to get away and re-center yourself can help you get into a much better place.

Mindfulness doesn’t have to look just like meditation. Whatever brings you back into the present moment can be a form of mindfulness. We tend to either live in the past, or put ourselves into the future and fear what might happen. We have no idea what will happen. The future is pure guesswork. All we’re doing is damaging ourselves by imagining awful scenarios. How can we keep bringing ourselves back to the now?

Do you have any advice for anyone who's either recently been diagnosed with cancer or who's facing a recurrence?

For the recently diagnosed, there’s no right way to feel about it. Whatever you’re feeling, whether shock, anger, or fear, is normal. I think we judge ourselves too harshly for our reactions and emotions. If you take that judgment away and give yourself space, it helps.

Also, try to take things one step at a time rather than rushing. It’s an overwhelming process at the beginning of your diagnosis because it’s so quick. The doctors say, “Here’s your first treatment date, and surgery, and radiation, etc.” You feel like you don’t have time to process it all. Take things one day at a time. If you have someone you trust, try to bring them to your appointments. It’s too much information to try to process on your own. When you’re in shock, your brain doesn’t retain information. Bring someone who can write down the important information and keep a log.

Reach out for support as early as you can. Some people feel like they need to deal with everything themselves. Some people don’t even tell anyone they have cancer. That’s perfectly fine if that’s your choice. But at the end of the day, everyone who wants it deserves support. You don’t have to do anything alone. 

The last bit of advice I have is not to compare yourself to anyone else. I think we like to compare ourselves to other people a lot. We wonder how this person is coping and what that person is doing, and then feel bad about ourselves when we don’t feel like we are the same. Every cancer journey is unique. You can’t compare yours to anyone else’s. All our diagnoses, treatments, and recoveries are unique. With my clients, I work with people who feel guilty because they feel like they had an “easier” cancer than someone else. They feel like they don’t deserve to feel the way that they feel. We’ve all heard the words “You’ve got cancer,” and that’s the end of it. We all deserve the support we receive.

For those facing a recurrence, I want to tell them not to put pressure on themselves to “be strong” or handle the diagnosis in an inspirational way. Just be authentically who you are. If we try to push those emotions down, they always come back up. That’s the way they work. Feel those emotions, even if it is difficult.

Start building your toolkit. Give yourself time to process the recurrence, and use your toolkit to cope with it. That toolkit can consist of anything from support to physical assistance, to nutrition, to emotional support. Put something together that is what helps you the most. Try and put some boundaries in place as well. When you’ve had a recurrence, it’s big and life-changing. You’re going to be in place for a while. Think about “What can I do to make my life simple while I’m going through treatment. What can I do to take away anything that drains me a lot? How do I get myself out of situations that I don’t want to be in?” The focus should be on you. How are you going to prioritize yourself? Women find prioritizing ourselves challenging because we’re so used to being the caretakers. How do we swap that role and allow ourselves to be cared for? It can be difficult.

Many women come to me in their late 40s, early 50s. They are going through menopause and are in a very specific time in their lives. You have so much on your plate, from a full-time career to teenage kids and elderly parents. You’re getting everything from every direction, and then you feel as if you have to stop your life for cancer treatment. You’re expected back at work within two weeks after your last treatment, even when you’re not ready. Support and finding what matters are so important under these circumstances. 

Lastly, what matters to you? Those are your anchors in life. What is actually important? Is it your hobbies? Is it your family? Is it your job? Find anything that makes you feel like you and dig deep into that. You’re still you, no matter what you’re diagnosed with. You can have the exact same diagnosis as someone else and have a completely different life history and outcome than they do. Someone may be diagnosed who feels supported and is in a really good place in their life, while someone else may be living on the brink of poverty, with many people who rely on them. You have no idea what’s going on in someone else’s life, so comparison and judgment are just a waste of time.

How did having cancer shift your relationships with friends, family, and other loved ones?

It’s definitely something that comes up a lot in my coaching. Cancer can impact every single relationship a person has. For me, I was 35 and had a boyfriend when I received my diagnosis. We’d only been together for three years, and smacking a cancer diagnosis into that mix could have gone either way. Amazingly, he chose to propose to me as soon as I got my diagnosis. Now we’re married and have been for nine years. However, I know a lot of examples where relationships end, and people separate because their partner can’t handle the cancer diagnosis and all that comes with it. That can be absolutely devastating.

Friendships have unique dynamics as well. I was in a period of my life where my friends were getting married and having kids while I was going in a completely different direction. I didn’t know anyone who had ever had cancer. It can be quite an isolating experience. You can end up having needs and expectations from the people in your life, but they don’t know what those expectations are because they have never been in a situation where a friend has cancer before. They don’t know what to do. You want support but you don’t know how to ask. 

Some people will step up, but you’re not quite sure who it will be yet. You think someone who has been your best friend for 20 years will hold your hand through it all, but it may not be that way. Somebody that you’ve just met a few times, or a friend on Facebook who is checking in on you every day. You just have no idea.

When the treatment is over, a lot of my clients say they do a big reevaluation of the people in their lives. Whoever wasn’t there for them might get moved to the side for a bit, and those who did care get upgraded. I’d say that’s common. 

I’ve always been thought of as a strong person and felt that I needed to keep that appearance up during treatment. It was quite hard to disclose how I was feeling to friends and family and I didn’t let them see all the hard parts. It’s quite difficult when you suddenly have to be vulnerable with people in your life when you’ve never been vulnerable with them before.

What do you want people to know about life beyond cancer?

For a moment, let me speak to those who are trying to support someone who just completed active treatment for cancer. 

There’s a vast difference between what your expectations are, and what reality will be for your loved one. You want them to immediately get back to normal, because you don’t want to have to be on the cancer treadmill with them anymore. I understand that. It’s really hard. Everything in you wants things to be okay again for your loved one. But that’s not reality. What’s actually happening is that you expect them to be okay immediately, and they aren’t. They still feel sick and can’t go back to normal. Your feelings are causing them guilt and frustration because they can’t meet your expectations. This guilt and frustration can cause recovery and healing to take longer than it should.

All people really want is for you to hold their hand and support them through the way that they’re feeling. It’s as simple as that. They just want you to be there for them and let them feel how they are feeling without pressure. 

Another note, there is no timeline for recovery after cancer. You can’t say “Well, it’s been six months, you should be better by now.” We are all unique and have come from different circumstances. We all have different things going on in our lives. Healing doesn’t have a timeline.

You might look at your loved one and say, “You look better! You’re looking well physically.” For someone who’s had cancer, that could be one of the worst things they hear. They think, “Yeah, maybe I am looking well, but that’s through a lot of effort. In reality, I’m feeling knackered inside. I’m in pain. I’m scared. I’m feeling all these negative things.” It kind of devalues the truth when people say “You look better.” You don’t know what’s going on inside someone’s brain and body that isn’t being shown on the outside.

Also, keep the conversation going. Once you’re on the other side of cancer, people think that bringing it up could be triggering for the person. Yet, people who have been through cancer do want to talk about it. It was a huge thing that happened in their lives. Not everyone wants to talk about it, but some people like myself feel like we are being ignored when someone acts like cancer didn’t even happen. It feels like people are crossing the street instead of interacting with me and asking how I am. Life can be hard, and avoiding it often just feels worse for the person.

Now, I have advice for those who are facing life beyond cancer after having cancer themselves. After cancer is the time to invest in self-compassion and being kind to yourself. We really do bully ourselves internally quite a lot. Take the time to put the self-compassion hat on. If this was happening to your best friend, would you say the same things to that person? Look at yourself the same way. It is a big, scary thing that you’ve been through. You deserve the gentleness and kindness that you would give to anyone else going through this.

I truly did see life differently after cancer. In fact, I didn’t want things to be the same. Some people don’t like the term “new normal,” but I can’t think of a better way of saying it. A lot of people say, “I want to get back to normal.” The question is, what is normal? To me, normal doesn’t exist anyways. You’re not the same person you were a year ago, two years ago, or five years ago. We’re constantly changing. To me, life after cancer was an opportunity to change my life into what I wanted it to be. You can discover what it is that you want, who you want to be, who you want to hang out with, and what job you want to do. I redesigned my life into one that felt more authentic.

That did come after a period of grieving. Give yourself time and space to grieve for the life you had and the person you were. There’s nothing wrong with grieving for that. It’s essential. Give yourself that time and space, and then maybe you can start to see life in a different way. Prioritize yourself.

Cancer can’t really be forgotten. I wouldn’t say you can easily put it in your past. Instead, it’s something you kind of live with. You build your life around it and live with it. With time, things do get better. When you’re right out of treatment, it doesn’t feel that way. I thought I’d feel terrible forever. I know it’s a cliche, but time is the greatest healer. With time, I promise things do get better.

Photo courtesy of author.