When you were diagnosed with breast cancer, what was your first thought?

“I’m going to die.” Right? First vision that popped into your head: a deathbed, a funeral, motherless children.

In years gone by, cancer often did progress to death. Doctors didn’t understand it; there were no good treatments, save surgery. So especially for those of us who are a bit older, a cancer diagnosis can still feel like a death sentence.

Statistically speaking, as of 2005 (the last year such statistics were gathered by the National Institutes of Health), about 1 in 5 women with breast cancer will die from that cancer, or its complications.

1 in 5. Just twenty percent. If you have breast cancer, your odds of surviving it are quite good.

Still, some of us fall into that 20% who won’t survive. Who do everything right – surgery, chemo, radiation, hormone therapy – and still have it all come out wrong. Who find ourselves at the end of the line; no more treatments to try.

What then?

Facing the inevitability of death is almost certainly a longer-lasting, harder blow than the initial cancer diagnosis. Back then, you may have faced sleepless nights as you imagined the worst. But you very quickly went into treatment; your oncologist assured you that you were doing everything possible to kill those cancer cells, and that you had every hope of living a long and healthy life, post-treatment.

Now, the oncologist looks at you somberly, sympathy in her eyes. She didn’t cure you. She has nothing left to try. Her pain is real, and no doubt significant – though surely not as great as yours.

How do you deal with death?

Some women are almost happy to let go. Exhausted from treatment, both physically and emotionally, they see death as a blessed relief from unrelenting pain.

Others refuse to accept death’s inevitability. Miracles happen. There’s always another treatment out there, despite the oncologist’s best advice. These women go to their death fighting with every ounce of remaining strength to hold onto life.

In between these extremes are women who maintain hope up to their last few weeks or days. “I’m not really going to die. Something will happen.” Then, when “something” doesn’t, they face death – eyes wide open.

When you stop fighting cancer, and admit that it’s gained the upper hand, how do you feel? Is there a “right” way to feel?

It depends on your personality. For some – those who refuse to accept death, right up to the moment it comes – ending treatment probably feels like defeat. You fought hard, and lost. You’re angry. You feel like a loser.

Or you feel that you don’t “deserve” to die, not after trying so hard. Life is unfair; it’s not supposed to end like this.

And that’s OK. Validate your feelings; they reflect the person you are, the person you’ve been your whole life.