What happened, in summary

Bethany was 33 when a breast lump she had watched for months became impossible to dismiss. Earlier breast lumps in her 20s had turned out to be cysts or swollen lymph nodes, and she had dense breast tissue, so she first assumed this one was benign too. The lump appeared in November 2014 and grew over time. By the next summer, she also felt a lump in her armpit. Bethany first pursued thermography through a naturopath, but repeated thermography scans showed no cancer even as the lump enlarged. Her own concern eventually pushed her to get an ultrasound and mammogram, which showed suspicious findings, and biopsy confirmed breast cancer on September 16, 2015. PET scan and brain MRI showed no spread to other places, which brought relief. Her cancer was hormone-positive and ER-positive, and doctors staged it as late Stage II or early Stage III, with cancer in both breasts and lymph-node involvement, including a 4.8-cm tumor in the left armpit. Treatment started with AC chemotherapy using Adriamycin and Cytoxan every other week for 4 treatments, followed by 12 weeks of Taxol. As of June 2026, Bethany was sharing how cancer changed her view of medicine, healing, mindfulness, and recurrence fears.