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Oncologist Sue Hwang was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 46, despite having no symptoms.
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She said the treatment was challenging, but finding her new normal as a survivor was even harder.
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Being more open and vulnerable helped her connect with patients and take care of herself.
Dr. Sue Hwang knew something was wrong as soon as she saw her scan results.
As an oncologist for more than a decade, she has helped thousands of patients navigate their mammogram results to screen for breast cancer.
Her diagnosis was yet another shock – although all her previous scans had been clear, she found five worrying masses on her right breast, along with an abnormal lymph node.
“It’s like, this has got to be a joke. There’s no way in one year I’ve developed five tumors,” she told Business Insider. – You can not. And I didn’t feel it.
Before her diagnosis, Hwang told Business Insider that she had no symptoms and no reason to believe she was at risk for breast cancer.
She was healthy, played tennis daily and balanced her busy career with three sons as a single mother.
The diagnosis — in January 2024, when Hwang was 46 — felt like a spiral of bad news, as he learned the treatment would be far more involved than he’d hoped.
After several surgeries, including bilateral mastectomies, chemotherapy, radiation and hormone therapy, Hwang is in remission.
Now 48, she’s set to release her new memoir, On Both Sides of the Curtain: Lessons and Reflections from an Oncologist’s Breast Cancer Journey, out January 20.
Being a patient has led her to embrace vulnerability and made her a better doctor along the way, she said.
“Being more open with others about my struggles helped me heal because I realized I’m not alone. Everyone struggles and admitting that makes you more human. Patients were able to relate to me a lot better,” she said.
From doctor to patient
Hwang said her first response to the diagnosis was fear of breaking the news to her three sons — then ages 15, 13 and 11.
“I was just thinking about my kids and, ‘Oh my God, what’s going to happen if this kills me?'” she said.
Unlike most of her patients, Hwang knew what to expect from treatment and how to make sense of her prognosis. Breast cancer cases are on the rise, but it is a very treatable disease, especially if caught early. She considers breast cancer patients to be the “honor A students” of the cancer ward, with success rates of 95 percent for those with early-stage disease.
This is in stark contrast to other forms of cancer: pancreatic cancer, for example, has a five-year survival rate of around 12%.
Dr. Hwang’s memoir of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment shares what she learned as a provider and how it contrasted with her experience as a patient.Courtesy of Sue Hwang
Follow-up imaging showed that Hwang’s cancer was more extensive than expected. Her doctors, who were also her friends and colleagues, gave her an 85% survival rate. In summary, it’s an encouraging number. But all Hwang could think about was the 15 percent chance that something would go wrong.
“It’s a great number, but I heard it and I think it was the first time I really lost it in a doctor’s office,” she said. “I do all this and you’re only going to give me a B. That’s how I looked at it as a patient.”
The persistent cost of cancer
Despite the anxiety and side effects of treatment, Hwang said her biggest challenge was coming to terms with her identity as a cancer survivor.
She had hoped to return to life as usual. Her work as a doctor was about treating the disease, but nothing in her training prepared her for how things would change after her own diagnosis.
“Physically you’re not the same person. By the time I finished treatment, my breasts were gone, my ovaries were gone, my uterus was gone, my hair was gone and it’s a huge emotional toll,” she said.
Hwang said she is still figuring out what her new role as a survivor means to her.
Before his diagnosis, Hwang said he prided himself on keeping his personal struggles private.
People would say, ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ and I’d let them think I had it all together,” Hwang said. “I never told people it sucks, I get home and I’m exhausted, I want to cry because I’m so alone.”
She began talking about her struggles and asking patients for advice: how they recovered and came to terms with major changes in their bodies and lives.
For now, her strategy has worked less, focusing more on her family and prioritizing her health over uncertainty.
Above all, she hopes that sharing her experience can provide support for patients and one day push the healthcare industry to provide more structure after treatment.
“I really want people to know that they are not alone,” Hwang said. “It’s okay not to know. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to have anxiety. That’s just the nature of the disease.”
Read the original article on Business Insider