The Truth About Prevention and Proactive Care
From the Sunday Self-Care Chronicles | 5/25/25
This week’s Sunday Self-Care Chronicles is a deeper dive into the idea of “prevention”—and why proactive care might be an even more empowering frame.
This week’s issue touches on:
✨ The difference between true prevention, early detection, and risk reduction.
✨ Why proactive self-care matters, even when it can’t promise specific outcomes.
✨ How to take meaningful action in survivorship (with practical examples you can start today).
Read the full email below - and if something speaks to you please feel free to comment, share, or reach out!
Hello, lovely!
This week I want to talk about a word that gets thrown around a lot in healthcare, wellness spaces, and even self-care circles: Prevention.
It sounds empowering but it can also feel loaded with responsibility. Because here’s the truth: Not everything can be prevented.
And just because something happens doesn’t mean you failed.
If you've read my story then you know that I grew up with an extremely high risk of breast cancer (on paper up to 87% lifetime risk and honestly probably higher based on my personal family history).
Because of this I started screening for both breast and ovarian cancers at age 23 when I had my first mammogram and transvaginal ultrasound.
I continued with these screening tools every few years until I hit 30 and then upped the schedule to one of each annually.
By my late 30's I was alternating mammograms with breast MRI's every six months and having bloodwork and transvaginal ultrasounds every six months as well.
While I know that all of these were in my best interest none of them were actually preventative measures for breast or ovarian cancer.
What they did do was ensure that when cancer finally showed up in my breast it was caught as a 6mm Stage 1 IDC allowing for early and maximum intervention by choice, not just necessity.
For me true prevention finally came when I chose to have both of my breasts removed to reduce the chance of a new cancer or a local recurrence in either breast as well as having my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed to eliminate the possibility (now <1%) of ovarian cancer taking its turn.
I know that for many these feel like extremes and they did for me too, once. When I was still being monitored as high risk I had the option to consider both prophylactic mastectomy and oophorectomy but at 40 years old, I just wasn't there yet.
I held out hope that maybe I would make it to 50 and then I could just do it all at once.
Clearly it didn't work out that way but I don't blame myself or anyone else. I made the choices I was comfortable with at the time and I'm glad I engaged with the level of proactive screening self-care that was right for me.
Maybe it's because of this, that I admit I am a little sensitive when I hear things like mammograms marketed as breast cancer prevention tools.
Mammograms don’t prevent breast cancer. They screen for it. They hopefully catch it early enough that treatment can be less invasive and outcomes are better. But they don’t stop cancer from developing in the first place.
This doesn't make them any less important (!!!) and I might be swimming in a pool of semantics (I was an English major after all) but one of the things I've learned through nearly 13 years as a professional in integrative oncology is that words matter.
After my recent colonoscopy, I found myself thinking about this a lot.
A colonoscopy is one of the rare screening tools that actually can prevent cancer.
By finding and removing pre-cancerous polyps before they become dangerous, the procedure isn’t just early detection, it’s a form of intervention.
What a mammogram and colonoscopy do both offer is a chance to act early - not out of fear, but in partnership with our bodies. And that mindset? That is the foundation of proactive care.
Proactive care means taking meaningful action when there’s still space to work with. Not waiting for symptoms to scream at you. Not hoping everything's fine because nothing hurts yet.
It’s listening to the whispers before they become roars.
Sometimes that looks like scheduling a screening. Sometimes it’s asking a question that’s been weighing on you. Sometimes it’s building a small, doable routine of movement, rest, or nourishment because you know your body deserves attention even when nothing feels urgent.
This isn’t about chasing guarantees. It’s about building a relationship with your body and your health that is active, responsive, and self-honoring.
From my point of view, the difference between passive recovery and you creating an active opportunity for healing during breast cancer survivorship is all about proactive self-care.
Here are some of the ways you might show up for yourself:
Learn to understand your personal risk of breast cancer-related lymphedema so that you can manage and reduce your risk, or manage early symptoms better.
Work with a professional to ease discomfort from scar tissue and increase your range of motion.
Create an at-home self-care routine like dry brushing that increases healthy skin integrity and lymphatic flow.
Incorporate deep belly breathing into each day to stimulate and support your lymphatic and nervous systems.
Do a self-care assessment so that you can determine what is most important for your healing right now and make a plan to work on this specific area.
Prevention is absolutely fantastic when it's there and after that, risk reduction is the next best thing, but proactive self-care is ALWAYS available to you!
The more we reframe self-care as proactive, not performative, the more we start to see just how much power we still have—even after a diagnosis, even in survivorship, even when things feel uncertain.
💭 Something to consider:
What does proactive care look like in your world right now? Is there something you’ve been considering that won’t guarantee anything but might help you feel more present, prepared, or supported?
What's the first thing you need to do make it happen? Take that one step and you are already on your way!
☕️ I’d love to hear from you:
Has there been a time when taking proactive care of yourself helped you feel more grounded or more in control—even if the outcome was uncertain?
Hit reply and share your story, I’d truly love to hear it.
Until next week I'll be cheering on our future selves and remember, I'm always in this with you.
ps. Ready to take a proactive step that feels doable and impactful? My Lymphatic Self-Care Essentials Bundle includes simple, effective tools you can start using right now to support your body—whether you’re in early recovery or long into survivorship. Check it out here.