“
I am living my life to the fullest. I choose joy every day, and I make the most of my time here on this earth. I love to travel, so I have seen a lot of the world in a relatively short period of time. I’m spending as much time with my family, friends and Alpha Phi sisters as I can. I am living. “ — Susan "Suze" Knobler (Eta Beta-CSU San Bernardino)
Anjali continued. “Instead make concrete offers — whether it's food, helping around the house, giving a ride to an appointment, etc.” These days, Suze is back living in Redlands, California. Sadly, her mom passed away suddenly, not from breast cancer, but she did get to help care for Suze and see her become cancer-free. While Suze is in remission, her fight is not over. She still goes in for scans and checkups every three to six months, and she understands that her triple negative breast cancer is likely to recur. “If it were to metastasize, or spread from my breast it originally occurred in, I would automatically be diagnosed with Stage 4 triple negative breast
and radiation. Unfortunately, immunotherapy was not an option for Suze because of her underlying condition of ulcerative colitis. Despite the odds being stacked against her, Suze beat it. The chemotherapy successfully shrunk her cancer, and the lumpectomy left her breast tissue with positive margins. Suze has been in remission and cancer- free for over a year and a half. “This entire experience really put my entire existence into perspective,” Suze shared. “I realized I’m not going to live forever. Once I was deemed cancer- free, I started looking at the world with rose-colored glasses on, like I was seeing everything for the first time. I decided to be a bright light and pay everything forward. Everything just changed.” Suze admitted she wasn’t always the best at asking for or receiving help from others throughout her cancer journey. “I recovered at my sister’s house in San Diego, and I just didn’t want to be a burden on people,” Suze explained. However, it’s important for cancer patients to feel enveloped by their community in love and support. “Don’t ask me what I need; just do it,” Suze shared. “Most cancer patients would agree that we’re not going to reach out and ask people to do things for us. Not only are humans just wired against that kind of thing, but we truly do not have the energy to ask. And most of the time we wouldn’t even think of doing those things to take care of ourselves, let alone ask someone else to do them for us.” “And never say that you’re sorry,” Suze continued.” Don’t treat us like we’re
already dead or our fate is sealed. Tell me we’re in this together, that we’ve got this. Tell me you’re going to fight cancer with me. Just please, please, please don’t say that you’re sorry.” Suze chronicled her fight against breast cancer on her Facebook page, resulting in an even larger community of people both local to her and beyond rallying behind her and encouraging her to keep fighting. But even more importantly, her friends, family and Alpha Phi sisters were there fighting alongside her. “My two best friends are Alpha Phis, and they really stepped in to ride that cancer roller coaster with me,” Suze said. “When people love you, they want to be a part of this, and they won’t hesitate to show up for you when you need them. My Alpha Phi family did that for me. They moved mountains to see me and to show me that they were in this fight with me.”
cancer,” Suze explained. “And the survival rate of that is not promising. But since going into remission, I am living
my life to the fullest. I choose joy every day, and I make the most of my time here on this earth. I love to travel, so I have seen a lot of the world in a relatively short period of time. I’m spending as much time with my family, friends and Alpha Phi sisters as I can. I am living.”
It seems to be a natural human response for some to distance
yourself from someone going through something like breast cancer treatment, especially if the prognosis is not good. It’s too close to death, and it makes us uncomfortable. Or we worry that we’re more of a burden by coming around.
Suze implored that she wanted the main take away from this discussion to be that people understand that just because they receive a cancer diagnosis, even one as devastating as triple negative breast cancer, it does not necessarily mean they’re going to die.
Anjali implored that could not be further from the truth.
“Cancer, like parenting, takes a village,” Anjali expressed. “Even with an early diagnosis and good prognosis, there are many emotions and many appointments. Community support — both emotional and tangible — not only helps someone diagnosed with cancer, but it also helps their caretakers" “Don't ask ‘what can I do,’ and don't assume to know their experience,”
“A good friend of mine bought me a pair of pink boxing gloves because my saying throughout treatment and all of my social media was that I was wearing my boxing gloves and ass- kicking boots to beat this thing,” Suze shared.
“And you know what? I did.”
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