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When I was first diagnosed with rare metastatic appendiceal cancer in October 2023, my world blew up.It was a diagnosis with no known cure and no specific treatment protocol.
Talk about shattered dreams.I had just turned 40 and had been married only three years.
My daughter wasn’t even 2 years old yet.I shared the terrifying early days of my diagnosis here on Fox News and how stunned I was to be diagnosed with stage 4 cancer despite having minimal symptoms. Later, I wrote about my fierce determination to fight for my husband and young daughter because I had "too much to lose." At the time, my entire existence shrunk to a single, desperate objective: Do everything possible to beat cancer.So, I suited up for battle.
Over the past nearly three years, I’ve lost count of the rounds of chemotherapy I’ve endured.Maybe 45? Alongside the chemo came multiple surgeries, constant scans, port placements, hernias, drains, stents, bags, a 30-pound weight loss, and lots of flights back and forth to Texas for a targeted treatment.
My life is lived day to day.And yet, the world doesn't stop turning just because you have stage 4 cancer.I'M A 40-YEAR-OLD MOM AND WIFE WITH STAGE 4 CANCER.HERE'S WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOWAll of this medical warfare happens while I am still mothering a spunky 4-year-old girl who is my entire world.
It happens while I am trying to be a present wife, take care of a house, work as a journalist, be a supportive daughter to ailing parents, and desperately claw at whatever energy I have left to do the things I love.Ashley Papa receiving treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2026.(Ashley Papa)The whiplash of these transitions is where the real exhaustion lives.
In the span of a single week, I can fly to Texas, sit in a cold, sterile infusion room, fly back to New Jersey, spend two days with my head in a toilet bowl, and then force myself up to play dress-up with my daughter, take her to dance class, buy groceries, and run the everyday errands a hea...