Below, Stacy Kimmel shares how City of Hope supported her throughout her battle with breast cancer.<\/em><\/p>\n Stacy Kimmel is not being flippant when she describes breast cancer as an inconvenience. But even if she were, having had five conversations with someone in a white coat saying, \u201cYou have cancer,\u201d would give her permission.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Cancer is an inconvenience for me.\u2019 That\u2019s how I thought about it,\u201d said Kimmel, 49, describing her reaction after first being diagnosed. \u201cIt was getting in the way of my daily life. I also knew it was potentially life-threatening, but it was an inconvenience for a 38-year-old with a child.\u201d<\/p>\n Viewing cancer this way is an emotional reaction that could easily bend to darker thoughts \u2014 of losing everything, of not being around for her daughter. Kimmel is unwilling to do that.<\/p>\n \u201cWith a diagnosis like this you either keep fighting or you give up,\u201d said Dr. Mike Chen, one of Kimmel\u2019s physicians at City of Hope. \u201cStacy is a go-getter and she has a lot to live for. She\u2019s a fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel\u2019s resilience, her defiant mindset, may \u2014 according to a review of studies \u2014 reduce distress and improve quality of life. Coping this way seems most effective when it begins at diagnosis, which may have implications for the often-tumultuous disease course.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was all about trying to move forward,\u201d said Kimmel. \u201cPart of my reaction was me saying to myself, \u2018I want to be done with this. I want to be back to running, back to yoga, back to playing with my kid, you know?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In 2006, Kimmel was driving cross country to a new job in Nashville, Tennessee when she first felt a painful, burning sensation in her chest. The soreness and discomfort felt a lot like breastfeeding, but her daughter was passed that stage. When bloody discharge began leaking out of her breasts, Kimmel knew something was wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cI immediately knew. I just knew,\u201d said Kimmel. \u201cWhen they found the tumor, it was hardcore. It was, \u2018What? I have a 3-year-old. I just moved cross country. What am I going to do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Days later, she was diagnosed with Stage 0 ductal cell carcinoma, an early-stage cancer in cells lining the milk ducts of the breast. Despite the good prognosis, Kimmel felt she needed to be aggressive.<\/p>\n \u201cI figured I\u2019m young, I have a long life to live,\u201d said Kimmel, who decided to undergo a bilateral mastectomy. \u201cSo let\u2019s just be as aggressive as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n During the mastectomy, doctors in Nashville discovered the cancer was not local as they suspected but had breached the ductwork. \u201cThey saw that it was actually invasive,\u201d said Kimmel. \u201cIt had gone past the ductwork and there was a big tumor.\u201d<\/p>\n It was around this time that instinct \u2014 survival tinged with strength \u2014 kicked in for Kimmel.<\/p>\n She began doing what she does best: composing a to-do list. Checking tasks off lists was the habit of a lifelong career striver. She figured that same process would help her map out a plan to fight cancer.<\/p>\n \u201cI was always very list-driven,\u201d said Kimmel. \u201cSo it would be, my to-do is to get a mastectomy today. My to-do is to tell the plastic surgeon, \u2018You get two months to fix my breasts. That\u2019s it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n For two years after the mastectomy, Kimmel lived a relatively normal life and had no symptoms. But at 40, the overheated, swollen feeling in her breast area returned, this time suddenly.<\/p>\n \u201cThat time, I felt lumps under my armpit,\u201d she said. \u201cI figured it was just swollen lymph nodes, you know, people get infections all the time. But they did an ultrasound and said, \u2018No, you have cancer again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n To continue reading about Kimmel’s journey, head over to\u00a0fff.me\/kimmel<\/a>.<\/p>\n xx, The FabFitFun Team<\/p>\n For more inspiring stories, read about how\u00a0Donna McNutt<\/a>\u00a0dealt with life after cancer and learn about\u00a0Krissy Kobata<\/a>‘s journey through\u00a0myelodysplastic syndrome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":"FALL 2019 BOX PARTNER Here at FabFitFun, we partner with a new charity every season ...","author":272854,"featured_media":143612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[201],"tags":[533],"thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/static.fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/18151443\/stacy-kimmel-hero-1.jpg","thumbnail_url_middle_card":"https:\/\/static.fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/18151443\/stacy-kimmel-hero-1-386x200.jpg","formated_date":"August 12, 2019","category_name":"Members Only","category_icon":"https:\/\/static.fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/11113301\/iSiu0EDM.png","author_name":"","trending":false,"sponsored":false,"random_color":"#e08fd0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272854"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/stacy-kimmel_full-width.png\")
<\/p>\n