Debbie Legault

My daughter faced the difficult decision of balancing the potential benefits and risks of cancer treatment, including the long-term heart complications associated with Herceptin.

As a caregiver to my daughter who had breast cancer, pink takes on a new meaning for us — one I’m not quite a fan of.

After being my daughter’s caregiver during breast cancer, I now have a different relationship with my body, especially when I feel something different.

As a society, we shouldn't accept the "norm" of people younger than 50 receiving diagnoses or dying from cancer.

Undergoing cancer treatment is like pulling weeds — we hope we got the last of it and it does not return, but we can never be sure.

Accepting the unknown and understanding why random things happen helps me be hopeful as my daughter reached five years of cancer survivorship.

Oct. 8, 2019 was the last day of chemotherapy for my girl.

I found comfort and peace on social media from different cancer communities.

When my daughter was going through cancer, I realized that connecting with one her peers going through a similar experience was incredibly helpful.

Most cancer memories are triggering for me, but one place is particularly sweet when I think back on it.

After my daughter was diagnosed with cancer, I began to share my experiences through writing, and through that I found camaraderie — and heartbreak.

As a mom, I have the “worry gene,” though it got much worse when my daughter was diagnosed with cancer.

My husband is "that guy" who always takes care of everyone else, so his recent cancer scare was unfathomable.

People who have never experienced cancer may think that life continues as normal after treatment is done, but that’s far from reality.

When my daughter was going through cancer treatment, we often heard the beeping of her chemotherapy IV. But recently, the memory of that sound was replaced with something much happier.

After meeting a woman who was forced to wait five months between finding a lump and being diagnosed with breast cancer, I wondered if that time affected the stage of her disease.

Cancer isn't easy for anyone, but sometimes I feel guilty that my daughter had some supports that others do not.

No matter how grateful I feel this holiday season, I fear that my daughter’s no evidence of disease status was just a roll of the dice — and another roll can take us back to the world of cancer.

Think twice before telling me that there is a "good" type of cancer or that I should "just be lucky my daughter is still alive."

I was recently making myself lunch when suddenly, I was hit by an unexpected flashback to my daughter’s breast cancer experience.

My view on Breast Cancer Awareness month — aka “Pinktober” — shifted after my daughter was diagnosed.

It’s easy to question treatment choices patients with cancer make, but my job as the mother of a patient was to be supportive.

It’s good that celebrities with cancer raise awareness about the disease, but I think that they can do more.

When my daughter first started cancer treatment, she was brave, but after she understood how difficult it was, she was courageous in continuing.

From bald heads paired with lush eyebrows to the typical emaciated patient, there are certain tropes of how cancer is portrayed on TV that bother me, as they do not represent the experiences of everyone with the disease.

Despite how caring they may be, certain people in our life had a difficult time being there for the realities of my daughter’s cancer experience.

It baffles me that people take advantage of patients with cancer by peddling fake cures.

When a friend with metastatic breast cancer said that her cancer responded to treatment and she was excited to stop taking daily pills, I thought that something must have been miscommunicated to her.

I can’t imagine my daughter not getting important cancer treatments because we could not afford it or because insurance denied it. Unfortunately, that is the situation for many patients.

Telling friends and family about a cancer diagnosis can be gut wrenching. Here’s how I did it.