Meet the Models, New England: Tina Weidner

In 2013, at 43 years old, Tina Weidner’s life was in transition, as she was moving out of her marital home and in with her sister. It was an exceptionally inopportune time to feel a lump in her breast. Immediately, she “freaked out” and went to the doctor where she was diagnosed with Stage 3C triple negative breast cancer. She would go on to have a slew of treatments, losing her hair in the process. Of that time though, she says, “so many people from work called, friends rallied around me and I felt so loved. Honestly I felt like wow, I can’t believe all of these people like me.” 

Hearing the news she was cured was exceptional, but that high would only last a few months when in May of 2015, a follow up appointment revealed she was stage 4 metastatic: “I was so blindsided and it threw me into such a loop. I didn’t have anyone to talk to because support groups weren’t for metastatic patients and I was these women’s worst nightmare.” Further, she lost many friends who didn’t understand the new diagnosis and felt she was making her life all about cancer. In all, Tina was “having a really hard time.” Eventually, she found a metastatic Facebook group that saved her sanity. It allowed her to meet people who understood her experience. 

Tina’s hope is that sharing her story will make others feel heard, particularly those who took a stage 4 diagnosis as a death sentence. Indeed, Tina has been off treatment for 2.5 years with NED- no evidence of disease- an incredible plot twist in her metastatic journey: “I had myself dead an buried within a year when I heard doctors say metastatic, so I try to tell my story so others can have hope too.”