Guest blog by Stupid Cancer’s social media agency founder, Jacquelyn Ryal-Laufer for Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day

It was 1992 and I was 12 when my mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.

In 1992, we were only a year into the internet being available for public use. The sound of AOL Online dial up was the hit sound of the 90’s. Myspace was to surface 11 years later in 2003 and Facebook 12 years later in 2004. The concept of social networking and information sharing was not even a thought for most and if you felt a symptom, your only option was calling on a doctor not pulling up WebMed.

In 1992, we were only a year and a half or so into pink ribbons being handed out at Race for the Cure (started late 1990’s). Self breast examinations were not the usual discussion point at your GYN appointments.

In 1992, little information was known about metastatic breast cancer, let alone breast cancer and treatment options limited.

What prompted my mom to go to the doctor was a golf ball-sized lump she felt at her tricep.

I remember standing with my mother in my parents’ bathroom, the lights so bright it made me squint looking up at her. I mustered up the courage and asked her if I could feel what it felt like. She let me. I remember it feeling hard, not right, angry. My mom looked at me and replied “it will be alright”.

I was sitting at the edge of her bed when she told me the news she had cancer. The doctors said she had a month to live. I remember looking down outlining shapes of my parents quilted comforter with my fingers, a swell of questions and confusion tossed in my head. I looked up and asked “are you going to be bald?”.

I had never met anyone with cancer, nor did my family know anyone that had cancer. My only point of reference was television, and to this day, I’m not sure how I put together that if someone has cancer they could go bald. I didn’t even know how it happened and that it was from a treatment called chemotherapy.

When my mom was diagnosed, I felt completely alone. My family felt completely alone.

My mom and family truly thought she only had a month to live, but she wanted to try any and all treatments that were available in hopes she could beat the odds. And she did.

My mom far exceeded the expiration date the doctors gave her. She went through chemotherapy, radiation, a double mastectomy, was one of the first people to go through high dose chemotherapy and one of the first to try the chemo pill.

She fought so valiantly and lived for 7 years.

My mom died in 1999. I was turning 19.

I always say that the pain of losing a loved one never goes away, but that the pain changes. Each year I progressed so did the internet and my exposure to others that had also experienced what my family experienced.

Here we are in 2019 and my web company has spent the last year running social media and digital marketing for Stupid Cancer. It has been with this organization I have stopped feeling completely alone. I have connected with so many patients, survivors, caretakers…people like me, people who get it.

The internet and social networking has so many negative aspects, but the connection of others experiencing this disease (and other diseases) is not one of them. We live in a time where we can easily find each other, share information, resources and most importantly support and encourage one another.

For those out there in the world feeling alone in this, I promise you are not. There is an incredible community out here ready to stand with you.