Days after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, Nicole Stanley—a lieutenant/paramedic with the Mashpee Fire Department—was rumbling through the hills of Vermont on her Harley-Davidson.
“Wind therapy,” she called it.
The ensuing months of treatment would include 16 weeks of chemotherapy and a bilateral mastectomy. Lt. Stanley described having “cancer-brain” or “chemo-brain,” the feeling of “a thousand ping-pong balls bouncing in my brain that won’t stop.”
“There were times when I didn’t think I was going to make it,” she said.
Now, nearly a year after her diagnosis, doctors have told Lt. Stanley, “no carcinoma detected.”
She has returned to her cross-fit workouts, has another motorcycle trip planned for this fall, and come September, the Mashpee firefighter of 28 years plans to return to her job.
“I miss it, I miss my job, I miss my firefighter family, I miss helping people,” Lt. Stanley said. “That’s the goal, getting back to work.”