To meet Emily Garnett was to feel energized. She was part of a dozen cancer survivors who ventured into a fairly raw industrial zone of Brooklyn, New York, to be interviewed for a new cancer media company focused on patients. It was the first ever SurvivorNet studio taping session, and it took place at a loft that doubled as someone’s un-zoned residence. The elevator was broken and we were worried about the patients, many of whom were still on treatment, making it up the stairs, which were also covered in trash.
And, yet, the patients came. And they stayed for hours listening to one another share their experiences with cancer.
Read MoreThe SurvivorNet family will greatly miss Emily, her candor, and her smile.
Emily was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2017, just two days before her son’s second birthday.
“My husband and I had just bought our first house and we thought life was perfect,” Emily told SurvivorNet. “We were trying for our second baby, and my primary care doctor, at a routine physical, found a lump. I started on targeted therapy and hormone replacement. I was put immediately into menopause. It was the most devastating moment of my life.”
Still, Emily decided to try to see the light in her situation — and to use her experience to advocate for others. She began documenting her experience with the disease in the blog, Beyond the Pink Ribbon, was a member of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance’s Patient Advisory Advocacy Group and became an ambassador for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. She also hosted a podcast, the Intersection of Cancer and Life, where she candidly discussed the reality of living with advanced disease.
Emily remained dedicated to spreading awareness and advocating for the metastatic breast cancer community from the time of her diagnosis until the tragic end of her life.
Her husband, Christian Garnett, took to her Beyond the Pink Ribbon blog and Facebook days before she passed to share a candid and heart-wrenching health update, explaining that given some recent reactions Emily was having, they got to a point where there was nothing left to do — no treatments left to try.
“Cancer cheats, and it isn’t fair,” Christian wrote. “Some day, justice will come, as it does to all cheaters, and we will get the upper hand. We had thought, we had hoped, that Emily would live to see that day, that science would come through, that the breakthrough would come in time to save her. It did not. Science failed her.”
“But it doesn't have to fail the next person,” he added. “We are on the cusp of so many great things, and if Emily has taught us anything, it is to push, to reach, to strive for more, for better.”
He closed out his message saying that he will continue Emily’s hard work and dedication to the metastatic breast cancer cause, and that she was living out her final moments at home, surrounded by family and love.
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