Sarah Hickey’s Story

What has changed for you this year?

Over the last year, Sarah Hickey has been reminded again and again of the importance of trusting her body.

Living with metastatic breast cancer means Sarah has a care team, scans, technology, and medical systems in place to help keep her safe. But this year, she found herself realizing that those systems are only one piece of the picture.

“I think over the last year, I’ve just had a lot of reminders of trusting my body,” Sarah says.

Sarah found a tumor in her leg herself. At first, she thought it might be an ingrown hair. But she knew her body, and she knew she did not want to wait.

“I don’t want to dance around this,” she remembers thinking. “I don’t want to wait. I want the MRI.”

She pushed for imaging. The lump was cancer.

For Sarah, that experience became another reminder that even with a metastatic diagnosis, even with a strong medical team, even with scans and technology, she still has to listen to herself.

“The machines and the technology are one angle,” Sarah says. “But it’s not perfect.”

That lesson has become central to the way Sarah talks about cancer: advocate for yourself, notice changes, bring things up, and do not feel embarrassed for asking questions about your own body.

 

How has cancer changed the way you see beauty?

Sarah has also been thinking about beauty differently.

After breast cancer took so much from her body, Sarah sought out photos that would show the beauty she has now. Not a version of herself that hides what happened. Not a version that pretends her scars are not there. But a version that sees them honestly.

“I wanted photos that showed the beauty that I have now,” Sarah says. “There’s nothing to hide.”

Cancer has stolen so much from Sarah, but it has also changed the way she understands beauty.

“It’s honestly stolen so much from me,” she says, “but it’s also gifted me this way to look at beauty in a totally different way.”

Sarah says she sees beauty in her scars now. Not because she does not miss what cancer took, but because her body tells the truth about what she has survived.

“I just think my scars are more beautiful than I was with two boobs,” she says.

 

How has metastatic breast cancer shaped your parenting?

Sarah became a mother and a cancer patient almost at the same time.

“I don’t really know who I would have been as a parent without cancer,” she says. “I literally gave birth and found my lump breastfeeding.”

Because of that, Sarah has never known parenting without cancer as part of the story. It has shaped the way she talks to her daughter, the way she thinks about grief and death, and the way she defines what it means to be a good mother.

This year, Sarah has been especially proud of the way she has started talking with her daughter more directly about cancer, death, and uncertainty.

At first, she wanted someone to tell her the right way to do it. But through community, conversation, and support from other mothers living with breast cancer, Sarah realized there was not one perfect script.

She had to trust what she knew about her own child.

“It was permission to fumble a little bit and just go through it with her,” Sarah says.

Now, some of Sarah’s proudest moments as a mother are not the big milestones she once imagined. They are the honest conversations. The small moments of guidance. The times she gets to help her daughter understand friendship, confidence, self-worth, and what they believe might happen after death.

“I’m really proud of the way that I’m doing it,” Sarah says. 

How has your relationship with time changed?

Sarah still has dreams for the future.

She still wants to be there for her daughter’s wedding. She still wants to help her pick out a dress. She still holds that hope tightly.

But cancer has also changed the way Sarah understands a full life.

For a long time, she imagined that certain future milestones would define whether she had made it: weddings, grandchildren, the big moments that stretch far into the future.

Now, she is beginning to measure life differently.

“I’m just appreciating the now,” she says.

Sarah did not know if she would live to drop her daughter off at kindergarten. Her doctors had prepared her family for the possibility that she would not. And yet, she did.

That moment matters.

“I’m measuring the success of my life in those little moments,” Sarah says.

She still wants the big moments. But she no longer believes they are the only proof of a life well lived.

“I don’t need to reach that to have a full life,” she says.

What does legacy mean to you now?

For Sarah, legacy is deeply connected to her daughter.

When Sarah is asked to be part of projects with Runway, she sees them not only as opportunities for herself, but as pieces of a legacy her daughter will one day be able to hold.

“I hope you realize how important that feels for my legacy,” Sarah says, “and for knowing my daughter will have something to look back on too.”

Sarah wants her daughter to see strength. She wants her to see honesty. She wants her to see a woman who was brave enough to be fully herself.

She also wants her daughter to know that she can handle hard things.

“She is resilient, and she can handle anything,” Sarah says.

At the same time, Sarah is honest about the ache beneath that truth.

“I know she can handle it,” she says. “But I don’t want her to have to handle it.”

What has Runway meant to you?

Before Runway, Sarah says she felt isolated in her diagnosis.

When she first became involved with Runway, she was grateful because she knew the organization could one day be there for her family when she no longer could.

But what she did not expect was what Runway would give her while she is still here.

“I wasn’t prepared for the community, love, purpose, and fun it would give me while I’m still here,” she says.

Through Runway, she has found connection, belonging, and a community that continues to show up with joy, support, and understanding.

“Forever grateful,” she says.

What has Runway given you?

“Cancer has gotten me so excited about listening to stories and meeting people and understanding people,” she says.

That is part of what Sarah brings to Runway. She brings honesty. She brings reflection. She brings a willingness to say the hard things out loud, in a way that gives others permission to do the same.

On the Runway stage, we look forward to celebrating Sarah’s beauty and the full life she is finding in the little moments happening every day.