Deb Ontiveros is a Los Angeles native currently residing in Southern Utah. She is an interpreter, community health worker, and social justice activist for over 20 years. After being diagnosed with triple positive metastatic breast cancer at age 37, she has shifted her focus to breast cancer advocacy. Deb reads her essay “We Can Do Hard Things ” from the 2023 “MBC: Lessons Learned” issue of Wildfire. It’s a piece about what was learned living in the glare of uncertainty.
April and Deb will discuss the timing of and finding of your place in the breast cancer community, living by the words “what doesn’t kill me, nourishes me,” and reflections on losing people within the breast cancer community. They will also talk about feeling like an outsider when diagnosed young, and how Deb found connections with and became an ambassador for people of color within the breast cancer community. This episode includes explicit language, references to drugs and domestic violence.