Lung Cancer Patient's Mindset Journey: From Diagnosis to Thriving

Michelle, a licensed mental health therapist, was diagnosed with stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer after experiencing pain in her arm and down the left side of her body. Test and imaging results found tumors in her lungs that had spread to her adrenal glands and lymph nodes. She was given only 24 months to live at the time of her diagnosis.

After her diagnosis, Michelle began treatment with a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. After a year, chemotherapy became toxic to her body, but her doctors decided to keep her on immunotherapy for another two years. Unfortunately, immunotherapy began affecting her liver and kidney function and causing her body to stop producing cortisol, so her care team had to discontinue immunotherapy altogether and look for other treatment options.

Michelle's life became a never-ending cycle of new specialist visits. "Oncology for cancer treatment, nephrology for my kidneys and two different endocrinologists. My blood pressure skyrocketed. I was put on steroids, which made me gain weight and get diabetes. And then my body went into early menopause," she said. Due to treatments weakening her immune system, she was unable to touch or be around her family in case they might expose her to illness. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, she went through every treatment appointment alone.

As a licensed mental health therapist herself, she began to recognize signs of anxiety and depression in herself and knew something had to change. At a yoga center, Michelle found a sense of community, which allowed her to shift her mindset about her cancer diagnosis. "I began to love my cancer instead of locking into this 'F cancer' mentality," she said. "Lung cancer has a negative connotation that causes a lot of shame and guilt attached to it, and yoga and meditation gave me a way to come to terms with everything."

Though the medical treatment she received did shrink her tumors, three years after ending treatment, she is still seeing positive results. "It's crazy because at my last CAT scan, one of my tumors shrunk and I looked at my doctor and said, 'how did that happen?' and we agreed it had to be because of my mindset," she said. Now six years after the initial diagnosis, Michelle is thriving. She offers this advice to others: "Do the things you put on hold. Because we have one life, one body, one soul. This is all we got. So, make it happen."