What I'd Change About My Own Treatment Journey and What I'd Keep

Three years out from my last infusion, the blur of those months has finally started to settle into something I can look at without flinching. Treatment is one of those things you survive first and process later, and the processing is where the real lessons hide. Writing this piece felt less like relitigating the past and more like leaving a few honest notes for the woman who was too tired to write them down at the time.

Every breast cancer treatment plan looks different on paper, even when the diagnosis sounds the same. Two people with identical stage and hormone receptor status can walk out of the same oncology suite in Sydney or Perth with completely opposite recommendations, depending on which specialist they saw first. That's not a complaint, it's just the messy reality of a system that's still catching up to the individuality of each body. What I want to share here isn't medical advice, it's a candid look at the choices I made, the ones I wish I'd made, and the parts I'd guard with my life if I had to do it again.

I think there's a quiet pressure on survivors to either perform gratitude or perform outrage about their care. I wanted to sit somewhere in the middle. Some of my treatment was genuinely excellent, some of it left me wishing I'd been braver, and some of it was simply shaped by the realities of being a patient in Australia, where Medicare and the PBS carry a lot of weight but don't cover everything. If you're in the thick of it right now, maybe my hindsight can be a small flashlight for the parts of the path that feel dark.

The chemo chair conversations I'd redo

My biggest do-over is around the conversations I had while actually sitting in the chemo chair. The nurses at the day unit where I received my AC-T regimen in Melbourne were saints, but I was so dazed by the first round that I barely remembered to ask the questions I had written in my notes app. By round three I'd figured out how to ask better, and by round six I was the one reassuring a terrified first-timer in the next recliner. Looking back, I wish I'd brought a small voice recorder or asked a friend to take notes for me.

The other thing I'd change is being more upfront with my medical team about my mental health during treatment. I kept telling them I was "fine, just tired," because I thought that was the polite answer. Tired doesn't begin to cover the way chemo brain scrambled my words mid-sentence, or how a stranger asking how I was at the Coles self-checkout in Brisbane could undo me. If I could do it again, I'd name the anxiety out loud on day one, not week twelve. On the slow days between cycles, when I had just enough energy to read, I found myself dipping into broader wellness resources like healthbanquet.com for thoughtful pieces on rest and recovery that sat comfortably alongside the cancer-specific reading I was doing.

Asking for a second opinion earlier

I trusted my first oncologist, but I trusted her a little too uncritically. In hindsight, I wish I'd sought a second opinion within the first month, not because she was wrong, but because the act of hearing the plan explained twice, in slightly different words, by two different specialists, would have given me a deeper understanding of why each drug was being recommended. Breast cancer treatment in Australia is wonderfully multidisciplinary, but you sometimes have to push for the multidisciplinary bit to actually happen.

A second opinion also would have helped me feel less locked in. Cancer can make you feel like every decision is irreversible, and the truth is, most aren't. Switching from one aromatase inhibitor to another, for example, is a perfectly normal thing patients do, but I didn't know that until I joined a Facebook group at 2am and read forty other women's stories. I now keep a running list of second-opinion-friendly specialists across the country in case anyone wants it.

The small daily rituals I'd keep

Not everything in my treatment journey needs changing. The rituals I built around the hard days are the things I'd protect fiercely. A slow cup of tea on the verandah before each infusion, even on the Melbourne mornings that were grey enough to match my mood. A short walk around the block the day after each cycle, even if the loop was barely two hundred metres. A text thread with three friends who each took a different day of the week to check in, so I never had to be the one to start the conversation.

I'd also keep the small indulgences. A new pair of slippers for every cycle, a face mask that smelled like the lavender my mum used to grow, a trashy true-crime podcast queued up for the night before each blood test. None of these things cured anything. They just reminded me that I was still a person with preferences and not just a patient on a schedule. Survivorship, I've learned, is built from these tiny, stubborn assertions of self. A few of my favourite comfort items, including the lavender sleep mask and the ridiculously soft socks I wore to every infusion, ended up in the shop for anyone who wants a shortcut to the things that genuinely helped.

The financial paperwork I'd handle differently

Here's the part nobody warns you about. The financial side of cancer in Australia is a part-time job in itself. Medicare covered a lot, the PBS kept my tamoxifen costs manageable, and my private health insurance picked up some of the gap fees. But there were surprise bills from pathology, an unexpected anaesthetist invoice, and a long list of "extras" that fell into a grey zone of coverage. I kept every receipt in a shoebox under the bed, which is exactly the wrong system.

What I'd change is setting up a dedicated email address and a proper spreadsheet from day one. I'd also ask the hospital social worker to walk me through the financial counselling services much earlier, because the one-off session I got in week eight was helpful but late. If you're an Australian patient reading this, the Cancer Council's financial guidance pages are worth a bookmark, and many public hospitals offer pro bono advice through their oncology social work teams. The system is navigable, but you have to engage with it on its terms, and a clear head helps.

The friendships that held me up

The biggest thing I'd keep, by a country mile, is the circle of people who showed up. Not the people who sent a beautiful bouquet and then disappeared, but the ones who texted on the boring Wednesdays, who drove me to radiation at the Royal Adelaide without making a fuss, who brought over a tray of lasagne and didn't ask if I needed anything else. One mate in particular turned up to every single chemo with a different iced treat from a different suburb in Sydney, and I still think about that.

If you're reading this and you have a friend in treatment, the best advice I can offer is to be specific in your offers of help. "Let me know if you need anything" is a kind sentence that almost always goes unanswered. "I'm bringing you a coffee on Thursday at 10am, any preference?" is the one that actually lands. There's a beautiful Australian tradition of showing up with food when someone is sick, and it works because it removes the burden of asking.

Cold caps, scalp cooling, and the thing I wish I'd pushed for

Scalp cooling, often called cold capping, was available at the hospital where I was treated, but I didn't pursue it because I assumed it was too expensive, too time-consuming, or not really effective. I was wrong on all three counts, and I wish I'd had a proper conversation about it with my oncology nurse before declining. Hair loss is not the worst part of chemo, and I never want to imply that it is, but for me it was the part that made the illness visible to every stranger, and I underestimated how much that visibility would cost me emotionally.

Australian public hospitals vary on whether they offer scalp cooling at no cost, subsidise it, or leave patients to cover the cap rental and fitting fees themselves. Some private health funds will chip in, and several breast cancer charities offer subsidies. If hair preservation matters to you, raise it at your very first chemo education session, not your third. I would absolutely do this differently next time. On the practical note, the hours spent in waiting rooms also taught me to keep a small entertainment kit on hand, and the kind of low-stakes distraction you find in something like the mobile casino spin the reels round-up genuinely made a long infusion afternoon feel shorter.

Why I'd keep my oncology team and my own instincts

The thing I'd change least is my choice of oncology team. They were the kind of people who explained my tumour biology to me in plain language, who returned calls within a day, and who never made me feel like I was being dramatic for asking about a new symptom. They were also honest when they didn't have an answer, which I came to trust more than confident speculation. That honesty is rare and worth holding onto.

The other thing I'd keep is the quiet practice of checking in with my own body between appointments. I kept a one-line daily note in my phone, just a mood and a symptom word, and that little log ended up being more useful than half the pamphlets in the waiting room. It helped me spot patterns, gave my oncologist real data to work with, and gave me a small sense of control on days when everything else felt slippery. If you ever want to swap notes about the small things that helped, my contact page is the easiest way to reach me, and I read every message.

A quick comparison of what changed and what stayed

Area of my journey	What I'd change	What I'd keep
Chemo chair prep	Voice memos, mental health check-ins on day one	Verandah tea ritual, friend text thread
Specialist care	Second opinion within first month	Honest, plain-language oncology team
Cold capping	Raised at first chemo education session, not declined	Acceptance of whatever hair outcome came
Finances	Dedicated email and spreadsheet from day one	Medicare and PBS safety net
Friendships	Asked for specific help sooner	The friend who showed up with iced treats
Daily life	Shorter walks, gentler expectations on tough days	Slow rituals that reminded me I was still me

A practical takeaway I keep coming back to is this. Treatment will hand you a thousand small decisions, and you don't have to make them perfectly. You just have to make them a little more deliberately than I did the first time, and be brave enough to course-correct when something isn't working. Survivorship is built in the ordinary weeks that follow, in the small daily choices to keep noticing what your body is telling you, and in the stubborn insistence on being more than a diagnosis. The journey changes you, but the bits of yourself you choose to carry forward are entirely yours to decide.