The voice within: How Sherry Lawson learned to trust herself through metastatic breast cancer

In 1996, Sherry was 42 years old and just weeks away from graduating with her master’s degree in social work. After years working as a registered nurse, she was preparing for a new career as a therapist. At home, she and her partner, Sue, were raising a toddler and looking forward to the future they had worked hard to build together.

One morning, while showering, Sherry felt a lump in her breast. “I thought, ‘That’s different.’” Still, graduation was only two weeks away, and she told herself she would deal with it afterward. What she really meant, she says now, was: “Let’s just forget all about that.”

The morning after graduation, she woke up with a thought she couldn’t ignore. A voice inside said, “It’s time to get your mammogram.”

She listened.

The mammogram led to a diagnosis of breast cancer. At first, doctors believed it was stage II. But Sherry had also been experiencing unexplained pain in one of her ribs, and further testing revealed the cancer had already spread to the bone. Suddenly, what had seemed manageable became something far more frightening.

“We had this little one, our toddler, and my life was just beginning in many, many ways,” she says. “Everything seemed to change in a minute.”

Building a family, facing uncertainty

Sherry’s diagnosis arrived during a chapter of life she and Sue had worked hard to create. The couple had met years earlier while playing softball in Philadelphia. At a time when opportunities for same-sex couples to build families were very different than they are today, they navigated donor insemination and adoption to welcome their son.

By the time Sherry was diagnosed, he was 2 years old. “We were older parents,” Sherry says. “We wanted a family very, very much.”

The couple still hoped to have another child. With the diagnosis, they were uncertain about their future. Yet even as they navigated treatment decisions and the realities of metastatic breast cancer, they chose to continue moving forward with their one remaining dose of donor sperm. “We decided that we’d give it a shot,” Sherry says. “If it took, it took. If it didn’t, it didn’t.”

It did.

Looking back, she believes the decision reflected something deeper than optimism. Along with Sue, she was focused on continuing to build the family they had worked so hard to create and raising their young son. “I had a lot to live for besides my own self.”

Learning that expertise doesn’t erase fear

As a nurse, Sherry understood the seriousness of cancer. But that didn’t prevent her from minimizing what was happening.

Because the tumor was small, she assumed it was unlikely to have spread. When a physician recommended additional lymph node testing, she resisted. Part of her concern was lymphedema, a side effect she well knew could affect quality of life long after treatment ended. The physician persisted, however, and Sherry was startled by the results: 13 of the 30 lymph nodes removed tested positive for cancer.

Looking back, Sherry says, “I was naive. Truly naive.”

The experience taught her something she would later share with many of her own clients: Knowledge doesn’t always make difficult decisions easier. “I was certainly minimizing,” she says. “I thought I was healthy.”

As her diagnosis became more complex, she also learned how important it was to find a healthcare team she trusted. Some of her early interactions with her care team left her feeling scared and alone. One physician delivered the news that the cancer had spread to her bones in a way that felt abrupt and devastating. “It was like a death sentence,” she says. When another doctor delivered biopsy results and quickly left Sherry alone in the room, she knew she needed something different.

After changing physicians, she found providers who treated her not only as a patient, but as a person. Her new oncologist welcomed emotional support and meditation as part of her care. A close friend who was also a physician would sometimes visit during chemotherapy, bringing a guitar and singing at her bedside. As a result, Sherry felt “loved and taken care of” by her new care team. That support became especially important as treatment intensified.

Trusting herself when treatment became too much

In the mid-1990s, treatment options for metastatic breast cancer looked much different than they do today. Sherry underwent chemotherapy, including the doxorubicin (Adriamycin) regimen known even then as the “red devil,” followed by a clinical trial involving high-dose chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. “It was very, very toxic,” she says.

The grueling treatment required inpatient stays. Sherry and Sue spent months near the hospital while receiving treatment. Friends, family members, and Sue’s mother helped provide care.

By the time she was about to reach the fourth and final round of treatment, she was very ill. She says, “I was so sick, it was like my insides were lit up like a Christmas tree.”

Even so, she intended to complete the full course of treatment. Then, while lying alone in a hospital bed, she experienced a profound sensation — a voice coming up from her stomach to her ear. Its message was clear: “You will not take one more dose.”

After careful thought and conversations with those around her, Sherry decided not to proceed with the final treatment. The decision wasn’t easy. Sue was deeply worried that stopping treatment could jeopardize her survival. But Sherry felt strongly that her body had reached its limit. “I really do believe that fourth dose would have killed me.”

Healing beyond treatment

Sherry underwent radiation and continued navigating the long-term effects of cancer and its treatment. Years later, she experienced a recurrence in the opposite breast and chose to have a double mastectomy. She also developed significant cardiac complications and continues to live with lymphedema and neuropathy.

But she felt that physical healing was only part of the work. Sherry dove into meditation, visualization, support groups, and personal reflection. She examined her life and her self-beliefs. “I realized that throughout my life, starting very young, I had very low self-esteem,” she says. Sherry is careful to describe this as her personal experience rather than a universal explanation for cancer. But she came to believe that caring for herself emotionally was just as important as caring for herself physically — because she not only wanted to survive, she wanted to live differently.

“Love self. Forgive all. And give it away.”

The master’s degree Sherry was completing when she found the lump helped shape the next chapter of her life. She became a clinical social worker specializing in cancer care, helping people newly diagnosed with cancer and the family members who loved them. She understood the fear and uncertainty they carried because she had lived it herself.

Her interest in emotional healing eventually led her to train with surgeon and author Bernie Siegel, MD. Inspired by what she learned, Sherry began facilitating support groups and retreats for people living with breast cancer. Long before the term became widely used, she referred to participants as “thrivers,” because she wanted people to see themselves as more than a diagnosis.

Writing also became another outlet for reflection and healing. Sherry explored many of the same themes she discusses today, such as self-compassion and forgiveness, in her memoir Pinto Beans and Cornbread Kept Us All Fed. Thirty years after her metastatic breast cancer diagnosis, Sherry continues to share the lessons she learned while rebuilding her life after cancer.

The philosophy she lives by today is remarkably simple: “Love self. Forgive all. And give it away.”