What Breast Cancer Taught Me & My Son About Strength

Kristi Turner wouldn’t call her stage 4 cancer diagnosis a “blessing in disguise”—she, of course, wishes it had never happened. But it’s a reflection of her personality that she can’t help but focus on the bright spots that have littered her journey. And those have mostly included her son. 

Turner was a 37-year-old single mother to a 9-year-old when she received the diagnosis that changed her life. She’d initially gone to the doctor complaining of persistent back pain, and left that first visit with a prescription for antibiotics. “She did see that my right breast was larger than the other, and she thought maybe it was just an infection,” Turner tells SheKnows. “I have cancer on both sides of my family, but I was 37 so she didn’t feel like I needed to worry about it at that moment.” 

But after a month on the medication, nothing had improved. One of Turner’s coworkers was married to a doctor, who squeezed Turner in between appointments and noticed something hard in her right breast. A biopsy showed breast cancer, and further imaging revealed it had metastasized to her lymph nodes and bones, leaving Turner with a diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer.

“That was pretty devastating,” Turner remembers. “I couldn’t really fathom that this was actually happening to me and that so much of it had already spread through my body. All I was feeling was some back pain. I hadn’t really noticed my breast being larger, and it didn’t even cross my mind that it could be breast cancer — I was 37. So when I got my diagnosis, it was definitely life altering.” 

As a parent and particularly a single parent, one of her main concerns was her son. How would she explain the diagnosis to an elementary-age child? How would she juggle childcare with chemotherapy treatments? How could she guide her son through a major life change while still allowing him to feel the safety and security every child deserves? 

But what’s surprised Turner most hasn’t been the difficulties of parenting with stage 4 breast cancer. Instead, it’s been the ways in which her diagnosis has brought her and her son closer together, and allowed them to see each other’s strength in new and remarkable ways. 

Getting Comfortable With “The C Word”

Early on, Turner was “really careful” about how much she shared with her son. “I didn’t really want to use the ‘C word.’ I didn’t want to scare him. Most people think of cancer and they think, ‘OK, she’s not going to make it.’ And so I really wanted to be careful with my words with him,” she says. 

Another way she tried to protect her son was by using a cold cap. They’re insulated helmets worn during chemotherapy to narrow the scalp’s blood vessels and minimize how much medication reaches the hair follicles, preventing chemo-induced hair loss. “I thought, ‘If I can just save my hair, maybe I can look like things are normal for him and soften the blow,’” she says.

But after she started chemotherapy, her son noticed that the normally active Turner was in bed more than usual. “He was asking, ‘Mom why are you so tired? Did you not sleep well last night?’ I just remember saying, ‘Oh honey, remember I got sick and that’s why grandma and grandpa were here a lot? It’s this disease called cancer, and it can be scary, but Mom has control over it and the doctors are really paying attention to it. But the medicine that’s fighting it is making me tired,’” she says.

After 12 rounds of chemotherapy, there was no sign of active cancer cells in Turner’s body. But she had a lingering worry: that the cancer had spread to her brain, something her oncologist had mentioned was possible. She’d been asking for a brain scan, but her doctors kept putting her off, pointing to her lack of symptoms like headaches or blurred vision. But Turner was persistent, and eventually her oncologist helped her get a PET scan. Sure enough, she had four brain tumors. 

A two-hour round of radiation successfully treated the brain tumors, and today her condition remains stable, with oral chemotherapy and infusions every three weeks. But by then — about a year after her initial diagnosis — Turner had become more open with her son, especially when it came to explaining new limitations (like why she wasn’t able to go skiing with him that winter) or symptoms. And “You could see just his brain working, trying to comprehend it,” she says. “I think he maybe grew up a little faster than most parents would want their child to. But he’s learned so much.” 

Finding a Shared Strength

Some of the lessons Turner has noticed her son has taken from the experience are bittersweet: While she’s often surprised and touched by her son’s empathy, at the same time she wishes he didn’t have to be so considerate. “He worries about my hands and feet, which really take a beating with the chemo pills,” Turner says. “He’ll be like, ‘Mom, remember you have to wear your gloves when you wash the dishes.’”

Similarly, he’s learned self-sacrifice. “When I can’t take him somewhere because I have a doctor’s appointment, he’s very understanding,” she explains. “I really respect how he puts aside his own wants to be there for me, as much as I want him to be able to do whatever he wants.”

Turner works hard to make sure her son — who’s now a preteen — has healthy outlets and sources of support outside of herself as well, including therapy. She also makes it a point to model advocacy, something she views as extremely important, considering the role it played in her own diagnosis. “It’s amazing how much you have to put forward for your own health care,” she says.

One way she’s done that is by creating the support she wishes had been available to her family early on. Recently, Turner wrote the book Corgis Conquer Cancer. It was inspired a made-up bedtime story she told her son, and describes how Stella the Corgi — based on Turner’s real-life dog, Stella — deals with her mother’s cancer diagnosis. “We both are learning together through this process the best way to communicate about cancer and treatment,” she says. “And that’s part of the reason why I had written Corgis Conquer Cancer — so other families can have a jumpstart on what to expect.”

The book has helped Turner’s son reflect on and talk about his own experience with his mother’s diagnosis, and he loves to think that the story might help other families in the same position too. 

Focusing On What Matters Most

One unexpected outcome from Turner’s cancer diagnosis was how thoroughly it clarified her priorities. That was by necessity: Turner has a finite amount of energy each day, so she finds herself having to focus on her own health and her family first, then everything else, including work and friends. “It can be hard for people to understand why we can’t go out,” she says. “I don’t think they realize how much it takes away from us.” 

That’s why Turner pours into her son first. “I can’t work full-time, so I’m home more, which means I have been able to spend more time with my son now,” she says. She’s intentional about traveling and having fun experiences with her son, to bring lightness and excitement into his life. 

But she also cherishes the everyday moments, like school drop-offs. “Those rides to and from school sometimes are the most fun,” she admits. 

That same contradiction underlies much of Turner’s experience parenting while living with metastatic breast cancer: She wouldn’t have chosen this journey for her family, but since it’s happened, she’s able to embrace the positives. Turner’s proud of the resilience and strength her son shows — and she’s able to acknowledge the ways in which they’re a reflection of her own example. 

Before a recent paddleboarding trip, Turner loaded her paddle board and blew it up herself — something she hadn’t done in a while. Her son’s response? “See, Mom, you’ve got this, you’re strong.” It was a reminder to Turner, that “you can do this. You’re a strong individual and your kid will see that, and then he himself will portray strength in his everyday life.”

Content was independently created by SHE Media with funding from Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

For US audiences only.