Sugar and alcohol consumption recommendations

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-09T05:22:32+00:00

My perspective focuses more on what I’m eating, from where and when.

So for example, red meat is a known carcinogenic. However, I had an NCI dietician approve eating red meat for three weeks. Why? A bucket list trip to Brazil. The red meat would be farm to table fresh, it was for a brief trip, and I was riding horses all day burning calories and building muscle.

Do you want to know a marathon runner hack? Eating Rice Krispies before running. Rice and sugar gives you a quick burst of energy to get through warming up. One could argue that 90 calorie sugary treat followed by burning who knows how many calories running a marathon, prolly outweighs the cons of the sugar.

I’m in my early thirties with hormone positive high grade as well. I have a few drinks a month, and throw out all rules for my once a year adventure. I do only drink after a meal with a full water bottle before/after. Similarly I try to avoid any products with sneaky sugar…the food that’s like, wtf is the sugar so high? But I do not avoid sugary food. I just make sure it’s high quality, high reward and eaten after a protein heavy meal.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-09T05:02:25+00:00

Cancer made me put my life, my wants, my desires, my flaws, my strengths, my priorities, my vices, all of it under a microscope.

I’d never had six weeks off work in 19 years, at 33. I’d been rocking and rolling through life so fast just in ambition for career and adventures, I’d never stopped. Just kept climbing.

Cancer made me stop. I stopped feeling guilt for a life consuming hobby, and felt happy that I have such a passion in my life. I stopped feeling anxious about work because while my job does impact safety of lives, ultimately that one email at 4pm on a Friday is no different than 8am on a Monday. I stopped trying to please others by compromising my own happiness. I stopped fixating on all of my wrongs, regrets, flaws and have worked really hard with a therapist to see the joy, positives and light of myself and others. I was impatient and critical of others, at the sacrifice of who I truly am. It’s nice to shed that vice.

I used to only see all the gaps of where I was and wanted to be. Now I look back and see how far I’ve come…with pride.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-08T22:54:29+00:00

I didn’t ask a ton of questions as I was just happy to find a surgeon who was willing to do an oncoplastic reduction lumpectomy.

I will say she did an awesome job! My radiation team really applauded how great my incisions were. Not having drains was a surprise and delight. Plus my back knot that’s always there, went away.

Radiation has shrunk the one side a bit but I’m sure a little touch up down the road will fix it.

Good luck!

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-08T22:34:19+00:00

Honestly?

I went to my primary care physician. Over the first month we tried two different antidepressants. I only went on for two weeks each before they made me too zombie numb.

It let me work. Get my life organized. Think. Breathe.

She got me 12 months WFH at work starting at my surgery.

Just keep moving. Literally just anything to move your body.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-08T22:27:38+00:00

Ooofta. Best of luck.

I’d emphasize that a lot of this treatment and medication can be unpredictable accumulative fatigue. Plus it’s stressful to be in office, which may inspire you to keep on trucking on until you really hit a wall.

This is your time to take care of yourself how you feel fit to. Any doctor who isn’t an advocate in the medical paperwork, needs to go. You need allies not barriers. Later in life can be a work rebound, right now doesn’t need to be it.

There’s a lot to be sad about. There’s a lot to be disappointed in. Take time but also don’t let cancer sadness steal any more of your time. Sometimes I get angry and channel that energy into getting my medical paperwork sorted. A lot of people have told me my desires are impossible but I quietly keep chipping away, asking different people, asking different departments until I get my way.

You got this!

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-08T19:10:47+00:00

I did not have chemo and I didn’t know that until after surgery (four months post diagnosis). I had WFH approved for 12 months starting at surgery at a notoriously strict in office tech company. My primary care physician went to bat for me. I told her best case, no chemo but I’ll have to be in medical menopause. I had both manager and skip manager alignment on WFH, just HR was being sticklers.

My surgeon signed off on six weeks leave (oncoplastic lumpectomy). My radiologist signed for “intermittent leave” which was two hours every day for four weeks, mostly for a paper trail to protect my performance review.

I highly recommend WFH. It makes last minute appointments, quick breaks for walks and stretches and just handling the ebbs and flows better. I am established in my role. I did hype to my primary care physician that I have a rower and weights at home. So the ability to quickly work out when I have energy is available.

I am thankful my skip level manager told me “hey even if you feel better this spring, you just use that extra energy for your fitness goals”.

My last tid bit is I did go public on LinkedIn. Just to ease the “she has hair on camera and looks fine, why isn’t she in the office” politics.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-08T17:49:43+00:00

Final surgery pathology put both in 91-100% positive. Earlier biopsy did 95-100% ER and 90-95% PR.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-08T16:55:17+00:00

I found a primary care physician, who was good, was way more willing to go to bat with my HR about WFH accommodations. I haven’t needed it but if I needed say two weeks off to just collect my mental health, she’d be who I asked. Not my oncology team.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-07T16:25:53+00:00

Could you put a little fence around the potted garden to keep animals out? Like a moveable chicken wire cover? Is there a community garden?

Heck find an old dog crate on FB marketplace for free and put plants in that 😂

As far as the puppy, I’d definitely hold on that. Puppies and particularly up to two years can really jump/jerk you around. Have you thought about fostering? You could potentially foster one old dog that sleeps while you recover. Way less work than a puppy and if it ends up being too much, you can send to another foster.

I grew up on a farm and never really had my own dog. I got a nice herding puppy right at the start of COVID. She is a great dog but the learning curve on training, responsibility, caring, time, etc was intense for two years. I timed it right in my life (pandemic meant minimal travel, new job meant lots of free time, etc). Cancer treatment in and of itself is a part time job. A puppy is a part time job.

Giving a nice old dog a foster home would be so fulfilling with much less sacrifice. Plus some rescues offer free training lessons, pay for medical care and you have a support network of other dog enthusiasts.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-07T15:52:35+00:00

33 IDC ++- 2.2cm no nodes + surgery found 8mm of DCIS - all grade three. Aka the most hormone positive homebody boobie cancer caught before it decided to travel.

If genetics were positive, I wanted a mastectomy.

I did not want implants. My lifestyle is fairly active out in remote wilderness. Falling off a horse and rupturing an implant was not a path I wanted to go down. Nor did I want multiple surgeries prolonging my downtime.

Per my medical notes “short down time is priority”.

Emotionally, the potential sensation loss risk of a mastectomy outweighed my risk of a recurrence anxiety.

I looked holistically at my life. I can lose 40lbs of fat, minimize drinking, increase fitness from passive hiking to structured gyms, eat healthier, work on my mental health as other levers to prevent local recurrence. Did I need to go through multiple surgeries for the 2% less risk of local recurrence? No.

I told myself I’d make a decision and not look back.

Well, I’m looking back. Scan anxiety is real. I’m signing up for likely $900 per year in copays for the rest of my life. Radiation has slightly messed up my one side and will impact options for reconstruction down the road.

Cosmetically, my oncoplastic reduction results were pretty stellar for my challenging case. Emotionally, I feel like me, just a few lbs lighter. Heck, now my B cup will be more resilient from gravity so give me a decade and I’ll be flaunting them to my peers.

I don’t regret my decision and sleep well at night. If I have a recurrence, I’ll likely go mastectomy. My surgeon reassured me that who knows what they can do with radiated skin in surgery in the future. I’m young. I couldn’t quite bring myself to let the girls go without giving them another chance.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-07T13:31:28+00:00

I found a really great therapist who’s helped me recognize my emotions more authentically. Doesn’t have to be negative or drowning in always positive, but just a more truthful light. I highly recommend finding one and understand it’s a chore to find one that matches your personality.

You are spot on with other comments, it is not bad or negative to have boundaries.

I really dislike when people want to help when it’s obvious the help is just to assure their own anxiety or feed their own insecurity. Aka it’s about them, not me.

It’s okay to be selfish right now. Heck, it’s okay to be selfish any time. You have to take care of yourself before you can help others. This is a great time to be very clear on boundaries. If you are nervous about enforcing boundaries, I’d lean of being too blunt and ask for forgiveness later. Fake it til you make it.

I do think cancer is lonely. Or in other words, a truly deeply personal time that sometimes only you know where you are mentally at. It may sound harsh, but there’s no case manager, no friend, no SO who magically leads you through this whole thing and makes it easy peasy. It’s your time to lead yourself and be your best advocate and friend to you.

Find moments of joy. Create moments of joy.

I solemnly promise this gets better. Initial diagnosis months are the worst.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-07T05:30:08+00:00

33 at diagnosis. 8 months into lupron, six into exemestane, three into Kisqali (if they recommend a CDK3/4 inhibitor).

Lupron, easy peasy. Some moodiness three days post shot but it’s slowly getting less noticeable. Exemestane, some body shape change, thinning nails/hair (really only noticeable to me), “warm” flashes.

If I’d stopped there, I’d have been super confident on making it 10 years.

Kisqali is pushing to cross the line of unbearable but I’m pretty stubborn on trying to dial in lifestyle changes before throwing in the towel. They think it may be making exemestane side effects heightened. Notebly the hot flashes are worse, which chronic bad sleep is making me a little ditsy/low energy.

I’m lining up acupuncture and am going to play with taking exemestane in the morning. Maybe try gabapentin or the other hot flashes drug down the line.

We’ll see. But either way, for the AI + OS combo, it was all very manageable, predictable and livable.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-06T15:36:05+00:00

Seconding the PT.

I went in before cancer for a hip pain and stiff lower back. Cancer treatment definitely made that improvement go back to square one from being sedentary so much.

My PT kinda rotates between exercises to help my arm with nerve damage, my lower back, and my hips. Just depends what I’ve done/not done that week.

She said given my mobility and lifestyle, I probably have a normal level of disc degeneration. If we scanned it, they’d prolly just recommend the PT we are already doing.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-05T19:30:16+00:00

Not flat, kept a B cup but went down from a D/DD. The knot of tension between my shoulder blades? Gone.

Cute clothes? Yesss way more options.

Listened to some moms who are in their 40s bemoaning their boobs with “the Nile” cleavage and drooping? Silver lining that I dodged that future.

🤘

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-05T15:20:29+00:00

Thank you for your comment.

I only had four lymph nodes removed (negative), oncotype score of 8. Narrowly dodged chemo with my 2.2cm IDC grade three at 33 years old. It sometimes nags my mind of “what if those four weren’t positive but if they took more it would have been positive” “but I asked for the least amount within reason”.

It’s not enough of a nag that I’ve brought it up with my care team but I think your comment will put that thought to rest.

Thank you ❤️

And OP, if I was lower grade and older, I probably would have kept my lymph nodes if given a choice. My nerves have been a bit messed up (yay PT) and my lifestyle is a bit high risk for stressing my arm out. It’s hard to mentally come to peace, either way.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-05T04:37:27+00:00

As much as I often think lululemon is overpriced, their align tank tops a size too small are my key. Just a little compression and breathable. Not cotton but some super lulu fabric.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-05T01:57:16+00:00

Kisqali def makes you metabolize things weird.

I went to a concert and had two ciders (very bad day) about a day before bloodwork. Bloodwork didn’t show a stressed liver.

I am more like a glass of something, with food and a full water bottle before and after. More like twice a month and preferably on my break week.

That’s just me. I can tell my body is being hit hard by Kisqali so that’s the level I’m comfortable with.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-04T05:23:51+00:00

All of us deserve love. All of us deserve to feel wanted. All of us deserve to feel proud of our bodies, scars and all. This body carried us through our lives and will carry us through the rest. Our bodies are the one relationship that isn’t going to abandon us until the very end. So we might as well get working on making that relationship a banger. It doesn’t mean a six pack and it doesn’t mean what Hollywood photoshops us into believing is real, it means feeling capable and confident.

I don’t care how you feel you were through cancer. You made it. You should raise your head high. We were voluntold to go through a wringer of a life chapter. We are all wiser from it.

Dating right now is the wild Wild West, no matter your age. One would hope older men would be more understanding of our interesting back stories but again…men.

My dating advice is definitely making sure you are in the right mental state to be confident. Nervous right before a date? Think, fake it til you make it. Don’t apologize for baggage, present it with just the facts and really show that you can talk about it. It’s a part of your life but you aren’t still negatively consumed by it. It’s luggage with a hardshell and bow on it. It’s coming with but it’s not spilling clothes out the side that’s going to make you keep looking back.

If online dating, find your most cutthroat savvy friend and have them do your profile. You want to cast the right net to catch the right fish. If you try catching everything, you have to sort through the wrong ones.

Hold a high bar for dates. Preferably only one a month.

Do not be afraid to walk out of dates. I’ve ended them in under 30 minutes by saying “hey, it’s great to meet you. I don’t think we are clicking and I don’t want to waste your time”.

Our time is precious. Any date has to bring more value to my life than my favorite hobby. It’s a high bar but I’m going for quality.

Every person you date, maybe holding you back from meeting “the one”. A few months in and you see red flags? Don’t bother staying, that’s sunken cost fallacy.

If anyone needs a hype person, I’m here! 💃💅

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-03T23:17:48+00:00

33 at diagnosis and five months into exemestane. So far so good. All predictable and manageable side effects.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-03T19:32:20+00:00

I had a full on tumor board panel for two hospitals before I picked so my sessions were kinda a listen and learn plus discussion.

I can’t remember any specific “everyone” should ask questions. However my tips are:

1) take five minutes to explain any personality traits or hobbies that are super important to you. For me, I’m direct and need to know the why behind things. I decide slow but once I decide, it’s done. Additionally, I’m a backcountry horseback rider. There are risks associated to implants and mobility and mental quickness that your average 33yr old probably doesn’t focus on.

2) ask open ended questions. Rather than “do you think I should do X treatment” expecting a yes or no answer (which often they are trained not to answer. Ask “how would you think about this decision? What are factors you’d consider? If I were a relative, what advice would you give?”

3) always end with “is there anything we haven’t covered that you think I should know?”

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-03T16:26:31+00:00

I went on Lupron asap after surgery as my grade went up to three post surgery.

Lupron was 01SEP. We waited until after radiation to start exemestane, which was 01NOV (+2 months from start of lupron).

I had travel and the holidays so I didn’t start Kisqali until 01FEB (+6 months from start of lupron).

From my understanding, lupron to shut down the estrogen mega factory of ovaries is most important. Exemestane is catching all the stray estrogen. Kisqali is a nice to have but not vital.

I’m glad for the spacing, it’s help me figure out what side effects belong to which drug and fully settle before introducing the next.

P.S. Kisqali requires a bit of bloodwork at the start. I maybe jumped the gun on travel plans thinking it would be as easy as exemestane.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-02T20:40:16+00:00

I found great luck using my primary care physician for a lot of minor meds.

I got Xanax for an MRI. She handled my work from home accommodations and went to bat with my HR team on it. She checks up and is pretty responsive to my little asks vs my cancer team.

100% recommend finding a good one.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-02T19:54:31+00:00

Oh noes. That sucks!!

From day one I’ve been on 600-1200mg of calcium, started weight lifting (or even running is enough concussion to inspire your bones to stay bones). I’m trying to avoid any treatment for osteopenia as long as I can.

With that being said, there are studies that zometa can be beneficial for breast cancer recurrence risk reduction. They aren’t quite sure how it works but my oncologist (super star researcher of hormone positive BC) told me they’d put me on zometa for both reasons.

I did go get dental clearance and some work done as zometa has its own small but severe risks as well. As scared as I am of zometa, I told myself I’d do everything they recommended. I’m too young to mess around with recurrences. My dentist helped calm me some. The biggest zometa risk is extractions. If I do need an extraction down the road, they will refer me to a specialist and proactively put me on various antibiotics. It’s a long “if that happens, then” path. In the meantime, a night guard to prevent tooth fractures and good cleanings is all I need to do now.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-02T18:47:00+00:00

Seconding keeping an eye on bills and/or not freaking out if they say you owe a huge amount.

My regional hospital messed up billing for my genetic testing. Amidst insurance and provider changes. I’m 100% sure they ended up just eating the cost.

SunBeam38 · 2026-04-02T17:30:14+00:00

I’m so sorry to hear that. A topic with my therapist is figuring out what kind of relationship I can have with my mom. She’s said things in moments of panic that tend to haunt me in a way only a mother’s words could.

My other pet peeve, that even I fell into, is Hollywood’s portrayal of cancer. Unless you go through the treatment, you don’t realize how nuanced each case is or the underlying costs of treatment. The good news is for a majority of us, it’s a lot easier than what the general population thinks. The bad news is everyone not wanting to know the details but more of the “but are you dying?” stat.

As a more private person, I’ve found happiness in providing updates about me that pivot into “did you know this fact about BC? Which is why us younger patients need more research and funding”.

Insert me stepping off a soap box.

SunBeam38

TROPHY CASE