& That’s on Survivorship

Hello loved ones near & far,

I wanted to pop in a new blog post here to give you some updates on what has been happening in my cancer free life. I’ve been doing my best to empower myself and romanticize things in my every day life. I’ve even started a series on TikTok where I document little snippets of things I experience in my daily life and put them into a video! Everything from my morning routine, my coffee, the meals I make, the places I go, and even my walks with Mochi! I am focused on being fully emersed and grateful for the now, as there was a version of me 9 months ago that didn’t think I would be sticking around on this earth much longer.

I am currently on day 55 of romanticizing my life after cancer - you can follow along with the series here.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been busy going to many different specialist appointments to work on solving some issues that the treatment caused. In early May I was seen by a Gastroenterologist and completed an upper endoscopy to look into why I was experiencing such bad bloating and abdominal discomfort. I am glad that my instincts were right and I got this looked into further as I was diagnosed with SIBO, small intestinal bacteria overgrowth. According to my integrative medicine team, this is common for people that go through chemotherapy because and it is caused by changes in intestinal microbiota from the drugs. I’ve been dealing with this bloating ever since September and was thinking it may just go away on it’s own, but I’m glad I advocated for myself. Of course - the doctor’s solution was 14 days of pharmaceuticals. I have wrapped that up and am feeling grateful for the relief from the discomfort.

In the last few weeks I also noticed that my breast shape looked a little off and the tissue expanders that I have in were more uncomfortable than they were in previous weeks. After investigating, I realized that my tissue expanders have flipped upside down and one may have a rupture.

Yes, I have upside down, deflated, hollow boobs right now. It’s truly a fabulous look.

This supposedly is common for the breast tissue expanders to shift and flip, although my plastic surgery team did not give me this heads up so it came as quite a shock. They assured me that them flipping or leaking is not harmful to me in any way. Although, since I have no set surgery date or end date of when I get these things out - I have a scheduled appointment next week to have them looked at and hopefully manipulated by hand to get back in their correct place. If the one tissue expander truly is ruptured and has leaked, I will need to have another surgery to get it replaced.

Oh, the joys of fake boobs. Truly, I am getting very sick of having foreign objects such as tumors and expanders in me. It’s hard not feeling like yourself for so long.

When I am talking to people about my cancer journey, I am often asked what the worst part of cancer treatment was. This is when I share the various different complications that I experienced. To be clear, these are complications - not common side effects. I’ve recently ranked each of my complications in order from least worst (10) to absolute worst (1), here they are for your reading pleasure:

10. Hypothyroidisim - The immunotherapy drugs attacked my thyroid and caused them to stop making necessary hormones.

9. SIBO - I experienced 9 months of extreme bloating due to this bacterial overgrowth.

8. Fissures - Yikes! Let’s just say that these recurrent little buggers made going to the restroom very painful.

7. Liver Hepatitis - The immunotherapy drugs caused inflammation of my liver and I needed to go on high dose steroids to resolve this.

6. C Diff - This was a complication of diarrhea and vomiting after taking antibiotics after my surgery, this required another course of antibiotics and a trip to the emergency room.

5. IV Benadryl Reaction - During my first and second “healing sessions” I was administered Benadryl via IV and it caused me to feel very weird and made me scared of going back to treatment.

4. Oral Thrush - My second drug regimen caused my mouth to become extremely dry, my tongue to turn white, and caused me to lose my taste. This infection spread down my throat and required me to take two different medicine to resolve it.

3. Ovary Tumor - This wasn’t a complication but something extremely scary that was found during my initial scans. There was concern that this tumor may have been breast cancer that had spread or ovarian cancer. It required an emergency surgery where I was at risk of losing my ovary. Praise the heavens this ended up being benign and I could keep my right ovary. This complication added an additional layer of fear on top of my already unstable mental state.

2. Carboplatin Drug Reaction - After my 5th and 6th healing sessions I ended up in the emergency room a few hours later with a severe drug reaction where my health deteriorated quickly. This caused trouble breathing, chest pain, nausea/vomiting, back pain, fever, low blood pressure, high heart rate, and other allergy related symptoms. This drug reaction made ER doctors believe I had sepsis and it required me to be hospitalized for three nights. After this happened twice, this drug was luckily removed from my regimen.

1. Adrenal Insufficiency/Addison’s Disease - This is the most permanent and lifelong complication. I had a week of severe illness where I couldn’t keep food down and was extremely fatigued. I was hospitalized for two days while the doctors ran tons of tests. Turns out, the immunotherapy drugs attacked my adrenal glands causing them to no longer create cortisol. I now am on a steroid replacement protocol that I need to continue every day for the remainder of my life.

Now, let’s shift to some brighter news.

I recently went on my first breast cancer walk as a survivor. My old coworker, Tara, let me know about an upcoming breast cancer walk in Eagan, MN. I was surprisingly already going to be in the cities that weekend so I committed! We both have experienced breast cancer in the last year so we had so much to chat and relate about. We got there early to get free goodies and browse through the little shops they had set up. We also got access to the Hope Village where we got a light breakfast and a photo op opportunity. We then got to march with all other survivors and those living with metastatic breast cancer in a Parade of Hope which was super empowering. My biggest takeaway was a stat that they shared during the opening ceremony. They mentioned that breast cancer mortality has been decreasing since 1989 and is down 42% overall. That truly is amazing, and shows that all of this research and focus is going to good. Life, quality life, is definitely a worthy endeavor.

Cancer can be very isolating and lonely at times, especially at my age, so being surrounded by others who just get it felt like a breath of fresh air. In the upcoming months I look forward to attending more events and perhaps even some young cancer survivor retreats that I have been applying for!

There isn’t a day that goes by where I am able to waive the trauma of what happened since my diagnosis. Trauma is anytime too much happens too soon, and that is exactly what happened on July 26th of last year when I received my diagnosis call. (Most cancer survivors remember the date in which they were diagnosed and remember what they were doing when they received the news - now that is the definition of trauma.) Every day reminders such as certain smells, photos, food, songs, and the little baby hairs growing on my head remind me of how much I have overcome and how quickly things have changed in the matter of a year.

In recent weeks my eyebrows and eyelashes have made their full return and I got my final round of eyebrow tattoos at Brow Artistry in New Ulm. Words truly cannot describe how amazing it feels to know that this type of service exists. To help you feel confident with your appearance when something such as cancer threatens to take away your identity, even if just temporarily. These brow tattoos helped me immensely in my day to day life when treatment caused my brows to fall out not just once, but twice.

I used to think things such as shaving my legs were such a nuisance, but now I look at these very basic tasks with a different lens. Having hair on my legs means that my body is healthy, that I don’t have to convince myself to go back to treatment next week, there are no drugs in my system that are threatening my hair follicles, needing to shave means that I have somewhere to go and new memories to be made. To most, shaving legs is just another task - but to me, it’s a blessing.

Tim recently came home from work and shared “My coworker read your article when they were in the waiting room at the dentist, you are on the cover.” I couldn’t believe it! I had been interviewed for a article but didn’t know I would be featured on the cover of Austin Living Magazine. Inside my article titled “On her own terms: Breanna Bortner tells her story of cancer braveley, beautifully” spans over six pages. In this article I share more about my cancer journey, the creation of this blog, and my journey of education and empowering other young people experiencing cancer. Here is a link where you can read the article online.

In other news, I have recently started taking on clients again in my business. I have continued working with one of my previous clients and have been working on a project with co-founders of two local businesses. It’s the perfect project to work on as I slowly begin making my way back to being a business owner. It feels good to be using that side of my brain again. I have also recently signed up for an online program where I will be learning about Nonprofit Management later this summer.

I’m hoping for no more big updates on my end until I can have my exchange surgery (where they exchange the tissue expanders for implants) later this year. Until then, I will be posting sporadic updates on life after cancer, cancer resources, and other events I am taking part in. Hint hint - there is something VERY cool happening this year in November. In the meantime, I hope to continue regaining my energy, working on my health, and learning I am more resilient than I ever thought.

Take care & love yourself,

Xo, Breanna