Surviving Cancer Doesn’t Make You Bulletproof: A Reminder That You’re Still Human

The Picture-Perfect Future I Created

After three cancer diagnoses and losing three years of my life, I painted an unrealistic picture of the future—one filled with dancing unicorns, vibrant rainbows, and even a few pots of gold. I convinced myself that life after cancer would be nothing but abundance, free from pain.

I was officially released from treatment in the summer of 2024 and decided that my real life would begin in 2025. I was ready—ready to reclaim my career, rebuild my finances, and regain my freedom. For the first time in a long time, I believed everything was going to be okay.

The Accident

Then Kansas City rang in the new year with a record-breaking snow and ice storm, the worst in over a decade. I found myself bundled up, digging out from more than a foot of snow. The freezing temperatures turned everything into solid sheets of ice. A week later, when the roads finally seemed manageable, I decided to venture out for some long-overdue errands.

I grabbed my trash, my keys, wrapped myself in layers, and stepped out my back door.

The next thing I knew, I was airborne—flying down my back stairs. My left arm, still holding a stack of cardboard, got caught mid-fall, and when I hit the ground, my shoulder took the full impact. A sharp, searing pain shot through me. I lay there in a puddle of icy water, hysterically crying, knowing deep down this wasn’t just a bad fall. This was serious.

I was alone. Scared. And as I lay there, the trauma of the past three years surged to the surface. I dialed 911, unable to move, consumed by the same suffocating defeat I felt when my cancer returned. That same terrifying knowing—that I had nothing left to give and would have to dig deep to face what lay ahead.

The Reality of Another Setback

The next five hours were worse than I could have imagined. And that’s saying a lot, coming from someone who has endured three cancer diagnoses and countless failed procedures. My shoulder wasn’t just dislocated—it was broken, fractured in multiple places, and protruding unnaturally from my chest. The pain was indescribable, a level of agony I hadn’t thought possible.

Fentanyl and morphine barely took the edge off. With no time to waste before resetting my shoulder, they administered a high dose of ketamine. And honestly, I’m not sure what was worse—the pain, or the plunge into a full-blown K-hole. It was terrifying.

I’ve been through more medical trauma than I can count, but nothing could’ve prepared me for that level of dissociation—the total detachment from reality. When I came to, a close friend was sitting beside me, but the damage was already done. I had nothing left. I lay there in silence, tears quietly streaming down my face, completely swallowed by that familiar, crushing sense of defeat.

For days, I cried. Not just for the broken shoulder, but for everything it represented—the collapse of everything I was working so hard to rebuild. The belief that 2025 would finally be my year. The hope that I had turned a corner. It all crumbled, like the final move in a Jenga game.

All I could think was, “I can’t do this. I can’t live like this.” It’s a painful place to be—realizing you once fought so hard to survive, only to find yourself wondering… why?

The Universe Owes Me Nothing

Years ago, I read a memoir about addiction—a woman’s story of reclaiming her life and learning to live again, but sober. One part stuck with me. After years of doing the hard work, rebuilding her life, and staying sober, her marriage suddenly fell apart. She couldn’t comprehend how something so devastating could happen after everything she had fought through.

"But how could this happen?" she asked. "I did everything right. I’ve been sober. I’ve put in the work."

Just as she began to spiral, on the verge of relapse, her therapist reminded her of something simple but profound: She was still human. Getting sober didn’t make her immune to life’s hardships. Humans break teeth. They get broken up with. And in my case, they slip on ice and shatter their shoulders.

That moment in her story resonated deeply with me. I am a three-time cancer survivor—but I am still human. And surviving cancer doesn’t make me immune to bad things happening.

Reframing My Perspective

As the pain lessened, so did the mental spiral that had me teetering on the edge of collapse. But I knew I had a choice—I could let this setback pull me under, or I could approach it differently. I had to remind myself of a few fundamental truths to keep my mind from slipping into despair:

• I separated breaking my shoulder from cancer. These were two completely independent events—one did not define or influence the other. But in the ambulance, it didn’t feel that way. It wasn’t just a fall on ice; it was everything that had happened before it. That’s the nature of trauma—it builds, stacking itself layer by layer until your baseline for stress and fear is permanently elevated. But in moments like these, I had to consciously separate the physical from the emotional. The pain was real, but it didn’t have to mean more than what it was.

• I reminded myself that I am human. Accidents happen. They are a part of life. I pulled from the story I had read because it deeply resonated—if the only way forward was a life without hardship, I would never make it anywhere. I had to accept a realistic version of life, one that included both highs and lows. To move forward, I had to build resilience—not fall apart every time life threw me a setback.

• I didn’t search for meaning in the tragedy. A little bit of purpose can be motivating, but too much can be destructive. It’s natural to cope with hardship by envisioning a perfect future—one where everything falls into place, free of struggle. But when reality doesn’t match that idealized version, it can feel like failure when it’s really just life.

• I reminded myself: I was not going to die. Unlike cancer, this injury wasn’t life-threatening. With cancer, survival was uncertain. But this? This had an endpoint. I would heal. I had to focus on that fact—to remind myself that pain was temporary, that there was a clear resolution. That simple fact provided a sense of relief, something I hadn’t always had the luxury of feeling before.

• I asked myself, “What would I tell a friend if she were me?” The way we speak to ourselves versus how we’d comfort a friend in the same situation is night and day. Would I ever tell a friend who had just gone through this that the world was ending? Of course not. I would meet her with compassion, remind her that she will heal, and that while this moment feels heavy, it’s not permanent. Choosing to speak to myself with the same kindness I’d extend to someone else reframed everything.

Survival Isn’t About Never Falling—It’s About Getting Back Up

This experience was a stark reminder that survivorship doesn’t make me immune to life’s hardships—it just gives me a different lens through which to face them. For a moment, I let myself believe that beating cancer meant I had earned a hardship-free life, that the universe owed me ease after everything I had endured. But that’s not how life works.

Life keeps happening. Accidents still occur. Challenges still arise. And being a survivor doesn’t mean being untouchable—it means learning to navigate the inevitable ups and downs without losing yourself in them.

I could have let this injury spiral me into despair, but instead, I chose to shift my perspective. I reminded myself that this was temporary, that I would heal, and that I deserved the same grace and kindness I would offer anyone else in my position.

At the end of the day, survival isn’t about never falling—it’s about getting back up. And maybe, just maybe, it’s about learning to do so with a little more self-compassion along the way.