Helping Survivors Find and Hold Onto Hope
- Breast cancer survivors find hope in many forms — through laughter, meaningful rituals, personal achievements, and deep connections. Each story is a testament to strength in the face of fear.
- For many, leaning into relationships with loved ones becomes vital for comfort and courage throughout treatment and recovery.
- Finding joy in everyday moments — such as laughter among friends and family — can lift the emotional weight of cancer and support long-term well-being.
- During SurvivorNet’s Breast Cancer Dialogues panel, survivors spoke about finding joy in their daily routines, tackling new and ambitious goals, and more steps they took to ignite hope and move past their diagnoses.
During SurvivorNet’s Breast Cancer Dialogues panel with inspiring survivors, Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky, head of Breast Medical Oncology at Valley Health System, posed the question: What might you say to someone facing a diagnosis and struggling to find a bit of light?
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“Laughter! Honestly, try your best to laugh every day. Yes, there is scientific proof about how it helps you to navigate certain situations, but aside from that, it has the ability to penetrate your soul,” she explains.
Ebonie also learned to lean more deeply into her relationship with her husband during treatment.
“Most of it was really ensuring that my husband and I were able to reestablish and really solidify our bond in a very tangible way,” she adds.
Panelist Deb Song found herself finding light in the most unexpected of places: “When I was first diagnosed, I had to tell a group of girlfriends… we were sitting there [at a restaurant] crying, and our server comes up like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Did you just go through a bad breakup?’ I go, ‘No, I have cancer.’ The bill was free. Drinks were free… and I was like, does the cancer card really work?!”
That moment of levity stayed with her. “It is just moments of remembering … I’m still in control of my life,” Deb says.
WATCH: Women Creating a Great Life After Breast Cancer
Meanwhile, panelist Karen Xaverius turned to running for strength and to create the symbolism of crossing the finish line along her journey.
“I’m really proud to say that I’m a finisher of the Chicago Marathon in 2023. When I crossed that line, I was in tears, and the woman who put my medal on said, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so happy.’ I said, ‘I just beat breast cancer and finished the marathon!’” Karen says.
RELATED: How to Be Realistically Optimistic: Coping With Mental Health Long-Term
For Kelsie Barnhart, healing came through new achievements.
Her journey even led her up a mountain, symbolizing her moving uphill to reach her goal: remission.
“I ended up climbing Mount Ollivier… and along that climb, I found a rock that looked like a mountain range. That’s something I kept in front of me through a lot of my treatment and still keep in front of me to this day — to remind myself that our bodies can do amazing things if we push them to do that,” Kelsie says.
RELATED: 6 Cancer Survivors Tell Us How They Stay Hopeful During Difficult Times
In each of these stories, breast cancer was not the end of the story, but the start of a new chapter in a lifelong journey filled with courage, humor, and resilience.
For anyone facing the uncertainty of cancer, these brave survivors offer a message that even in the darkest moments, hope has a way of showing up — and sometimes, it laughs right alongside you.
Content independently created by SurvivorNet with support from Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.
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