You rang the bell. So why couldn’t I even make it to the car?

The cancer didn’t kill me. The treatment almost did.

I know how that sounds. But if you have lived it, you already understand, and if you are living it right now, I need you to hear it from someone who made it to the other side. Nobody prepares you for healing after cancer treatment, the second battle that begins the very moment you ring the bell. You ring it, and everyone cheers, and there are tears and balloons, and you are supposed to walk out of that building grateful to be alive and finally, blessedly, done.

 

I remember walking out the front door of the oncology office the day my treatment was over. I was so broken, so tired, so sick, that I could not even make it across the parking lot to the car. My husband at the time, Tim, went to bring the car around to pick me up, and I had to lower myself down onto the curb and wait. And I sat there on that curb and cried.

I want you to understand who was sitting on that curb. A personal trainer. A fitness instructor. A woman whose entire life was strength and movement. But more importantly, I was a wife and a momma, to a husband that deserved to be taken care of and to two teenagers that were my entire life, my reason for living.

Reality was, I could not walk far enough to reach my own car. The thought that went through my head is one I will never forget. “I can’t even make it to the freaking car.” How am I supposed to “go live my life?”

 

 

That was the moment I understood something no one had prepared me for. They prepare you to lose your breasts. They prepare you to lose your hair. They tell you your eyebrows will fall out, your toenails will fall out, they prepare you for every physical thing you are going to lose. But not one person prepares you for the death of who you used to be. Nobody warns you that the woman you were is not waiting for you when the treatment ends. That is the loss that is truly heart wrenching, and it is the one they never mention.

 

My life as I knew it was not sitting there waiting for me to pick it back up. I thought that when treatment ended, I would step right back into the woman I was on February 7, the day before everything changed. But I found my lump on February 8, on my son’s 13th birthday, and the truth is that the woman from February 7 was gone. She was not waiting for me on the other side of that bell. And nobody had warned me.

If that is where you are right now, sitting on your own curb, scared and exhausted and realizing the fight is not over the way they promised, then I wrote this for you. Healing after cancer treatment is real, and it is possible, and I have been exactly where you are. Take my hand. I’ve got you.

Why healing after cancer treatment is the battle no one warns you about

Let me tell you how I got here, so you know I am not speaking from a book.

I was 35 and I thought I was living my healthiest life. Then I felt a lump while I was wrestling my way out of a sports bra before teaching a class, and on my son’s 13th birthday, everything changed in a single afternoon.

The treatments that followed saved my life, and I will always be grateful for that. Tim stood by my side through all of it. My oncologist told me, in so many words, that they were going to get me close to death and then bring me back. That is exactly what it felt like. I sat in that chemo room at 35 with my headphones in, doing what I was told, because I wanted to live.

But nobody warned me about the 18 years that came next.

When surviving is not the same as living

Because here is what “surviving” actually looked like for me. Severe neuropathy. Heart failure. Weight that would not come off no matter what I did. Anxiety, depression, seizures. There were days I crawled across the floor because the pain in my feet was too much to stand on. My toenails were falling off. My teeth were loosening. Some days I would walk with a walker. I was desperately trying to take care of everyone around me like I used to do, but miserably failing and slowly disappearing and losing any resemblance of my former self.

I had won the war against cancer, and I was losing the war against what the treatment left behind. That is the part they do not put on the poster. This is the part that even the cute pink ribbon can’t make okay.

You finish one battle, you think you are done fighting, and then you realize you have to put your armor back on and pick your sword up again, this time to rebuild from the wreckage. With only pieces and fragments of who you used to be.

I will be straight up and honest with you. That was maddening. To have just survived the fight of your life, only to learn there is another war right around the corner.  This seems like a cruel joke. I can remember my angry prayers to God… “God, you can’t be serious, really???? Have I not suffered enough? Have I not endured more than most will ever comprehend? Why?”  Ironically, these answers are what have helped me form my purpose and lead me down the path of being HOPE for fellow survivors.

SPOILER ALERT – 23 years later… Cancer has taught me so much more than it could ever take from me.

Picking the sword back up: my path to healing after cancer treatment

I want to say something to the fighter reading this, because I needed someone to say it to me and no one did.

 

When they sent me home, the message I got was basically “go be happy you’re alive.” And I understand the heart behind that. But it is not enough. When you have sat on that curb and looked in the mirror and did not recognize yourself anymore, “be grateful” is not a plan.

What I desperately needed was someone to hand me a little direction and a little help. Someone who had walked it.

Someone who would say, take a breath, get ready, take my hand… You are not going to believe this, but your next battle is right around the corner. You do not have to take this one on alone.  You are not an army of one this time.  This time you will have fellow warriors fighting with you and for you. THIS is the part of the battle your family and friends CAN actually fight with you.  This is the battle that your tribe will help carry you through.

So this is me being that someone for you.

Finding the root instead of chasing symptoms

I found the ketogenic lifestyle when I had nothing left to lose and everything to gain. It went against almost everything I believed in, and everything I had been taught, but I was desperate, and desperation opens your mind. The real turning point came when I found Dr. Annette Bosworth, known as Dr. Boz, and her Keto Continuum. For the first time, someone was talking about the root of the problem instead of just the symptoms.

My body was fighting insulin resistance and broken metabolic health, and those things could be rebuilt.  Her teachings gave me my life back, and literally saved my life. She is truly the answer to my prayers.  A new way of thinking. A new direction… and new HOPE!  

 

This is where I jumped in, both feet, over a cliff with this beautiful soul of a doctor.

And here is the part that still takes my breath away. Today, I am a certified Dr. Boz coach.

The woman who could not make it to the car now stands with Dr. Boz as one of her coaches, helping by coaching her courses.

Twice a year I coach Dr. Boz’s 21-Day Metabolic Kick, her 21-day metabolic health reset, walking right alongside people who feel exactly the way I once felt, lost, scared, and desperate for someone who understands.

I get to share with other survivors the very thing that was handed to me.

A new way of thinking. A new direction. And most importantly, a new HOPE!

There is nothing on this earth that fills me up like watching someone realize their body is not broken beyond repair, that they can rebuild, that they can heal after everything they have been through. That is why I do this. Because the hope Dr. Boz gave me was never meant to stop with me. It was meant to be passed on.

If you are a survivor wondering whether there is a way back to yourself, I want you to know there is, and I would be honored to walk it with you, the same way someone once walked it with me.

Rebuilding takes a team, and time

By this season of my life, I had remarried, and my husband Lance stepped into the rebuilding right alongside me. He changed his whole relationship with food, our whole household, our whole world of eating, so that I would not have to heal alone.  Hand in hand, we struggled it out together.

I was learning all that I could absorb in my broken brain. I enrolled in the Primal Health Coach Institute while I was still healing myself. My classmates improved faster than I did, and it discouraged me, until I understood why. My body was broken at the cellular level. It needed more time. So I held onto two things: Dr. Boz repeating… “stay the course” and my mind repeating… “I am not going down without a fight.”

I leaned on mentors. Dr. Boz was my guiding light, giving me a checklist to follow. Dr. Livingood helped me with detox and nervous system work. And Dr. Ken Berry, with his honest, straightforward, man’s-man approach, was the one who really reached Lance. This was never one magic bullet. It was picking up the sword every single day and choosing to rebuild. Unlearning and Relearning. One choice at a time. Slowly and consistently.

The morning I felt the grass

If you want to know what winning the second battle actually feels like, I can tell you the exact moment I knew.

It was during COVID, in that season when the churches had just been allowed to open their doors again and we were still gathering and worshipping outside. I was at church, worshipping outside on the grass, and my bare feet touched the ground. And for the first time in 18 years, I felt it. The neuropathy had stolen that simple thing from me for almost two decades, and I stood there in the grass and did not drop to my knees from the pain. I just felt the ground under my feet like a whole person.

I cried right there. Because that was the moment I knew I was not just surviving anymore. I was living again. The same woman who could not make it to the car was standing in the grass, feeling the earth under her feet, with her life back in her hands.

Today, Lance and I are mostly carnivore, and together we have lost 120 pounds. But the scale was never the real victory. The real victory is that the woman in the mirror is finally me again.

To the fighter facing healing after cancer treatment

So let me say to you what I needed someone to say to me.

You are not crazy, you are not being selfish, and you are not being ungrateful, for feeling lost after ringing the bell. Finishing treatment and being healed are not the same thing, and the fact that you have to fight again does not mean you are weak. It means you made it, you are still standing. Surviving is not the same as living well, and you are allowed to want your whole life back, not just your hair and a pulse.

I am not going to tell you that keto cures cancer, and I would never make that claim. Conventional medicine helped save my life and I will always honor that. What I am telling you is that your body has a real capacity to rebuild when you give it the right chemistry, the right support, and enough time. Slow progress is still progress. And you do not have to figure out this next battle alone.

Healing after cancer treatment does not happen by accident, and it does not happen overnight.

Healing isn’t bought. It’s built.

One intentional step at a time, and you can start today.

Take my hand

If my story sounds like your story, I would be honored to walk this next battle with you. I coach from lived experience, not a textbook, and I will meet you exactly where you are, sitting on the curb, staring in the mirror, armor and all. Take a look at my coaching programs, or read more of my story here.

And if the pile of medications is part of your fight too, that is a battle of its own, and I share how I came off more than 15 of them in this post.

The cancer didn’t kill me, and the treatment almost did, but I am still here, and I am living again. You just came through the fight of your life. I know how much it takes to pick the sword back up. But you are not alone this time. Take my hand… I’ve got you.

🩷 Your Warrior Sister

Coach Tammie

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Tammie Laubacher is a certified Primal Health Coach and Dr. Boz Keto Coach, a breast cancer survivor, and the founder of Journey to Healing. She helps people rebuild their metabolic health through keto and carnivore coaching, faith, and real support. Always work with your qualified medical team about your own treatment and recovery.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only ever recommend what I have used and truly believe in.