#473 Healthy After Breast Cancer Isn't the Same as Being Disease Free#473 Healthy After Breast Cancer Isn't the Same as Being Disease Free
The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach
Laura Lummer reflects on the difference between being disease free and truly healthy after breast cancer. She shares personal stories and questions that invite listeners to rethink labels like "healthy" or "sick" and focus on daily choices that support healing.
22:57•31 Jul 2026
Rethinking Health After Breast Cancer: More Than a Clean Scan
Episode Overview
- Disease, health and healing are related but different: diagnosis, body function, and daily supportive choices.
- Normal scans and lab results do not automatically mean a person is truly healthy in how they feel and function.
- Many women who say they were "healthy" before cancer later recognise long-term stress, fatigue and poor digestion that were ignored.
- Health is shaped by thousands of ordinary choices over time, not one salad, one donut or one late night out.
- Prioritising rest, movement, nourishing food and emotional well-being is framed as a decision to treat yourself well, not an act of willpower.
“I believe that disease is something medicine diagnoses. That health is how well your body is functioning. That healing is the ongoing process of supporting that health through the choices you make every day.”
Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of life after breast cancer as Laura Lummer gently unpacks a question many women quietly carry: what does it actually mean to be healthy once treatment ends? Speaking as a two-time breast cancer survivor now living with metastatic disease, Laura shares how an online clip of William Shatner saying he and his daughter are "cancer free" sparked a fierce debate in the comments. For her, it highlighted something bigger than vocabulary.
It raised questions about identity, labels, and who gets to decide whether someone is "sick" or "healthy". Laura breaks the conversation into three clear parts: "I believe that disease is something medicine diagnoses. That health is how well your body is functioning.
That healing is the ongoing process of supporting that health through the choices you make every day." From there, she invites listeners to look beyond clean scans and normal lab results and instead ask: how's your sleep, digestion, energy, stress, and joy?
She uses stories from her own life and from clients to show how easy it is to say "I was perfectly healthy until I got cancer" while ignoring exhaustion, chronic constipation, constant stress, or living on processed food with a so-called "health halo". There’s humour too, like her son teasing her about "playing the cancer card" when she explains why she prefers early dinners to support digestion and sleep.
This episode is aimed at women after a breast cancer diagnosis—newly diagnosed, post-treatment, or living with metastatic disease—who are tired of being told to just "get back to normal". Laura gently challenges the idea that health equals the absence of a diagnosis and encourages a shift towards daily, compassionate choices that support the body and mind.
It leaves you with one simple but powerful question: if you truly believed you could influence your health today, what’s one choice you’d make differently?
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