Share your breast cancer story with the NY Times!

So the NY Times was looking for people to share their breast cancer stories. 
Of course, I jumped at this chance.  I only got 500 words though!  I'm hoping they'll contact me for a bigger story.  Hey, why not?
Here's what I submit:

My breast cancer story started in a NJ emergency room the weekend of Superstorm Sandy.  I had been having chest pains and thought I had fractured my sternum playing roller derby.  The doctors thought I had a pulled chest muscle.  A few tests later and I was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer at the age of 32.  My entire world came crashing down and things would never be the same.  I went from a life of roller derby, spin classes, yoga, dancing with the girls, and spontaneous weekends away with my fiancé to a world of oncologists, doctors appointments, tests and chemotherapy.  I soon found out that not only did I have stage IV breast cancer but stage IV triple negative breast cancer.  It was aggressive and it was incurable and I would be on chemotherapy for the rest of my life.

Settling in with this reality has been difficult.  Most days I can go on happily but sometimes the gravity of my diagnosis is too much to ignore.  I see other women get diagnosed with breast cancer, go through treatment and come through the other side cancer free.  I am still here.  I am still fighting.  I am on the cancer marathon. 

I feel I am too young to give up.  I am on a clinical trial and my hope is that one day I will get my scan results back and they will say “no evidence of disease.”  I still have that hope.  I still believe in a cure.  I have made a point now of spreading my story to show real breast cancer awareness.  Everyone knows breast cancer exists but they don’t know about us stage IV women.  We silently fight our battle.  People are always asking me, “how many more rounds of chemo do you have?”  I shake my head.   As many rounds as it takes to get a KO – either me or the cancer.

This is a difficult road I’m on.  I think about strange things like if I’ll ever get my taste buds back, if I’ll ever be allowed to eat sushi again, if I’ll outlive my dog, if I’ll have hair when I die.  I got married eight months after being diagnosed.  My husband is amazing.  I just wish we could’ve had the chance to be a normal carefree couple before getting hit with something like this.  I wish we could’ve started a family.

Science is moving so quickly now.  I just hope it is fast enough for me.  I am waiting for my cure.  I am waiting for my miracle.

I still get up every day that I don’t have treatment and go to work.   I currently share my “brain dumpings” in a blog titled "Hip Checking Cancer."