Kate Martin’s Story

How has breast cancer affected your life?

Kate Martin is approaching her 10-year cancerversary this April.

When she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, her son, Ronan, had just turned two. Kate was solo parenting, working, raising a toddler, and suddenly facing treatment for a disease she had no family history of.

At the time, she did not have space to fall apart.

“I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, and I was like, another thing on my to-do list,” Kate says.

Her priority was simple: get through it and make sure her son had his mom.

“There was only one outcome available to me,” she says. “No way are you going to have that sweet miracle angel baby grow up as an orphan.” 

Kate never asked, “Why me?”

Instead, she thought, “Why not me?” She knew there were so many people who had done nothing to end up in that statistic, and yet there they were. So Kate put her head down and kept moving.

 

What did treatment look like?

Kate’s tumor was large: seven centimeters, visible to the naked eye, and clear on an ultrasound. But it did not show up on a mammogram.

She initially thought it was a pec muscle.

Because her cancer was stage three, with lymph node involvement, Kate had chemotherapy first. Doctors needed to shrink the tumor and move it away from her chest wall before surgery. She was diagnosed in April, started chemotherapy in early May, finished at the end of August, and then had a month to recover enough for her mastectomy. Radiation followed after surgery. 

During that time, Kate was focused on one thing: getting back to Ronan.

Before surgery, she asked if she could bring a laminated photo of herself and her son into the operating room. She wanted the surgical team to know who she was beyond cancer, beyond hair loss, beyond the version of herself being wheeled into the OR.

“This is who I am,” Kate remembers thinking. “This guy — he’s your priority.”

Her surgeon understood.

After surgery, she sent Kate a photo of her hand holding that picture in the operating room, with a pulse ox on her finger. She told Kate she wanted Ronan to one day know what his mom went through for him. 

For Kate, that moment was a gift.

 

What was it like after treatment ended?

During treatment, Kate was in what she now describes as a functional freeze.

She was working, parenting, making plans, and doing what needed to be done. She had her best sales year ever. She was in “beast mode.”

But once treatment ended, the adrenaline wore off.

Kate describes it like driving through a four-way intersection and seeing a Mack truck about to T-bone you. You floor the gas, get through it, and only afterward, when you look in the rearview mirror and realize how close you came, do you start shaking.

“That’s what it felt like,” she says. “The adrenaline wore off. I had to sit in the reality of it.” 

Kate felt pressure to be okay again. She felt like she needed to return to being her shiny, sparkly self. She felt she had social debts to repay after so many people had helped her.

“I need to not need help from anybody anymore,” she remembers thinking.

But healing did not work that way.

 

How did community change things for you?

At first, Kate did not want to connect with other people going through breast cancer.

She did not want to hear about bad outcomes. She did not want cancer to define her. She did not want to imagine anything other than surviving. 

Later, she found community through The Breasties.

That was when something shifted.

“When you meet the people that do understand it,” Kate says, “that’s where the healing is.”

For Kate, that kind of community helped her process what she had been through in a way she could not have done while she was still in survival mode.

She also remembers the power of support from strangers. Through the Ellie Fund, Kate received a check that helped her during treatment. She had not expected it, and the gesture moved her deeply.

“I just felt so held by the universe,” she says.

That feeling is part of what draws her to Runway now: the chance to be part of the village of people helping support families through every stage of breast cancer.

 

How has breast cancer changed the way you live now?

Kate’s life today looks different than it did in those early years.

Breast cancer taught her to protect her peace, set boundaries, and stop living by “shoulds.”

“There’s no shoulds in my life anymore,” she says.

As someone who once described herself as a people pleaser, Kate is now much better at saying no to what drains her and yes to what fills her up.

“I have to take care of myself in order to take care of my family,” she says. “Yes to the things that fill my cup and bring me joy, and no to anything else that gets in my way.” 

 

What helps you heal now?

For Kate, healing now comes through reaching back and helping others.

“What has helped me and healed me more than anything is reaching back and helping pull other people through,” Kate says. 

That is part of why this year feels so meaningful. As Kate approaches 10 years since her diagnosis, she is not only marking her own milestone. She is also stepping into a community where she can help hold others.

This year felt like the right time.

We can’t wait to cheer her on!