Rebuilding Myself, Rebuilding Others

How Cancer Helped Me Leave a Toxic Relationship and Inspired a Nonprofit

There’s a line by Taylor Swift that has stuck with me: “Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”

For me, that saddest story began in March of 2021, when a sudden pain in my right breast sent me to the doctor. I was 39, busy with work and raising two young girls, and my OBGYN thought it would be nothing more than a cyst. Instead, within weeks, I found myself reading the words in MyChart: invasive ductal carcinoma. We would later learn that it was stage 2.

In that moment, all my dreams and plans shrank down to one urgent truth: I needed to stay alive for my daughters.

What followed was grueling – two lumpectomies, sixteen rounds of aggressive chemotherapy, twenty rounds of radiation, and the removal of my ovaries. I lost my hair, battled blood clots, endured blood transfusions, and entered menopause years too soon. On paper, it looked like cancer was tearing me down. But every morning I surprised myself. I got up, moved my body, cared for my kids, and felt grateful simply to be alive.

Physically, I was fighting. But mentally, I was unraveling. When treatment ended and I was told I was cancer-free, I was left with the pieces of a life that no longer fit. I had beaten cancer, but I didn’t really know who I was anymore.

Cancer didn’t just save my life; it gave me one back.

Years before cancer, I had been living what looked like a dream life: career, marriage, kids. But beneath the surface, I was constantly pouring into others while neglecting myself. My first marriage ended in 2017, and not long after, I rushed into a new relationship – one that, deep down, I knew wasn’t right.

By the time I was diagnosed, that relationship had already been through years of break-ups, make-ups, and emotional strain. Still, when cancer hit, he was the one who said he’d be there for me. He even proposed right before chemo started. And in my most vulnerable moment, I said yes.

The truth is that cancer didn’t make a bad relationship better. It only put it under a microscope. By the time I finished treatment, and we were married, I could no longer ignore the truth: I was in an emotionally abusive marriage. The gaslighting, the silent treatments, the walking on eggshells, it was all too much. The breaking point came when, in between chemo and radiation, he told me to stop talking about “my cancer” because it was over.

That’s when something shifted. I finally listened to the voice inside me, the one I had ignored for years. I gathered my daughters, left, and stepped into a calmer, safer life.

And here’s the part that still feels shocking to say out loud: I don’t think I would have left if it weren’t for cancer.

From surviving to rebuilding

Cancer stripped me of so many things I thought defined me. But it also cleared out the noise, the toxicity, the versions of myself that weren’t really me. It forced me to pause, to listen, to finally put my own needs at the center.

That clarity became the foundation for something bigger than me, Rebuild-A-B.

I founded Rebuild-A-B to support women impacted by cancer in the ways I wish I’d had more support—especially around mental health and intimacy. Through scholarships, we provide access to mental health and intimacy coaches so women can heal not just physically, but emotionally and relationally too.

Because as survivors, we don’t just need to be alive—we need to feel whole again.

Learning to listen

If cancer taught me anything, it’s this: listening to your body and your gut can save your life in more ways than one.

It might mean getting a mammogram after a strange twinge of pain. It might mean recognizing when your heart races at night because the relationship you’re in isn’t safe. It might mean walking away from people or situations that dim your light.

For me, it meant shedding the person I thought I was supposed to be, so I could rebuild into the person I was always meant to become.

And now, through Rebuild-A-B, I get to walk alongside other women as they do the same.

Because surviving cancer isn’t just about fighting disease, it’s about reclaiming your life, piece by piece, until you can finally say: This version of me is stronger, freer, and more alive than ever before.