To the Young Woman With Cancer Who Wonders If She’ll Ever Be Loved

If you were diagnosed in your 20s.
Or your 30s.
Or even your 40s, when you thought you still had time.

Before you met the love of your life.
Before children.
Before you felt settled in your body or your future.

I see you.

Not just the diagnosis.
Not just the scars.
Not just the reconstruction, the hormone therapy, the hair loss, the frozen embryos, the fertility conversations, the early menopause, the uncertainty.

I see the quiet question you don’t always say out loud:

Will someone ever love me like this?

Let me tell you something clearly.

Cancer does not define you.
It does not make you unworthy.
It does not make you damaged.
It does not make you unlovable.

Cancer refines you.

It burns away illusion.
It sharpens discernment.
It teaches you not to choose recklessly.
It teaches you that time is sacred.
It teaches you what depth actually feels like.

And here is something we cannot ignore.

Approximately 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime.

What is quietly unfolding is that more women are being diagnosed before 50 than in previous generations.

Women in their 20s. Women in their 30s. Women in their 40s who still feel young, vibrant, and very much in the middle of building their lives.

You are not rare because cancer touched your life.
You are rare because it did not take your spirit.

Yes, your body may change.
Your ability to carry children may change.
Your hormones may change.
Your timeline may change.
Relationships may change.
Friendships may fall away.

You may outgrow rooms you once belonged in.

But hear me when I say this:

You did not survive something this brutal to shrink yourself for someone who cannot hold it.

Survivorship is its own battlefield.

There are follow-up scans.
Hormone shifts.
Body image grief.
Moments of fear that come out of nowhere.
A strange loneliness when everyone else “moves on,” but you are still integrating what happened to you.

And still…

You fought like hell to be here.

Walk with your head high.

Not in arrogance.
In earned strength.

You are not too much.
You are layered.
You are aware.
You are no longer naïve, and that is wisdom, not damage.

The worthy one will not be intimidated by your scars.

He will be reverent of them.
Protective of them.
Grateful for the woman who survived long enough to meet him.

Do not walk in shame.
Shame is not yours to carry.

Walk in grace.
Walk in gratitude.
Walk in faith.

You are still allowed to desire marriage.

You are still allowed to desire children, in whatever form that may take.
You are still allowed to dream.

The same God (Universe, Source, whatever you believe in) who carried you through diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, hormone therapy, and heartbreak is not confused about your future.

You are not behind.
You are being prepared.

The right love will not see cancer first.
He will see your resilience.
Your softness after strength.
Your depth.
Your gratitude.
Your fire.

And he will know he is standing in front of a woman who fought death and chose life.

Wait for the worthy one.

He will not need you to hide your story.
He will honor it.

You are not less.

You are curated.

With unwavering belief in you,

~ Tina Saab, RN, BSN