Waltham Resident Confronts Her Fears As A Cancer Survivor

WALTHAM, MA — Brittney Tattan admits that she still gets scared. It's a different type of fear than the one the Waltham resident experienced when she was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. It's not the same as the apprehension she felt as she underwent 30 infusions, five different types of chemotherapy and hormone therapy in three cycles, as well as a double mastectomy. She allows that it feels strange to carry that daily worry because she has been granted the gift everyone who gives their all to battle the disease hopes to receive.

Brittney Tattan has concluded her treatments and has been pronounced cancer-free. Yet, her fight is not quite over.

"My doctor at Mass. General told me that a lot people struggle to adjust when they end treatments," the 35-year-old said. "It's something that becomes part of your daily routine. It's like your security blanket. You know you are always under your doctor's care. So even when you get a clean bill of health there is that little bit of living in fear all the time that the cancer cells have come back. Any little pain, anything that's not normal, you wonder: Did it metastasize? Did it spread?"

As she prepares to ride in her fourth Pan-Mass Challenge for Team Living Proof this weekend, she said she physically feels great — and has been told she is 100 percent healthy — but also acknowledges that emotional scars from all she's gone through over the past two years remain.

"When my doctor first talked to me about the end of my treatments at that point I was like: 'Why would I be upset to be done?'" she recalled. "When you're done with treatments, you no longer have those days when you can't get out of bed. You no longer have those days when you can't move. Why would I ever miss that? But now I look forward to the checkups. You want that reassurance."

A teacher at Framingham's Christa McAuliffe Charter School, she said she is doing her best to confront her fears, while still remaining ever grateful for all the care she got through MGH and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. When she was diagnosed in June 2017, it was six weeks away from what was to be her second PMC ride, and four months away from her wedding date. Determined to make the most of both life experiences, she opted to undergo an aggressive form of treatment through a trial funded with the help of the PMC.

One week after her second round of treatments, she rode more than 100 miles in the two-day event. That fall, she "married the man of my dreams surrounded by friends and family" in what she deemed "truly was a fairy tale wedding."

"I actually had my two best rides when I was going through treatments," she said. "I think I felt like this was helping me. That this was part of helping me get cured, that it was almost part of my treatment."

She said riding in the PMC seemed like she was part of an operation to save her own life, and save the lives of others whose cancer regimens include the type of cutting-edge treatments she was receiving. There was such a purpose in all of it that she could not stop peddling, would not stop peddling, until she had outraced this disease.

Now it's a different type of race. She said it's a mental duel between how proud and fortunate she feels to be able to call herself a cancer survivor, and the fear of the unknown after two years when her daily mission was so singularly clear.

She said it's been harder to prepare for this year's PMC than it was the two years she rode while undergoing treatments. But she added that she is pushing herself to keep getting on her bike, as she pushes herself to "get better, because I haven't been my best."

"I am proof that this research works," she said. "Now I keep riding so it can continue, and more people can have the outcome of being a survivor that I did."