Every week, the same question shows up in my comments, emails and my DMs. It comes in a hundred different versions, but it always lands in the same place.

“What do I do if I don’t want to take endocrine therapy?”

Many of them have already started the medication, felt their joints lock up, and their brain go foggy, and are wondering if this is really what the next five to ten years have to look like. And almost all of them have been told some version of the same thing: if you stop, the cancer will come back.

I want to address that question honestly. But I can’t answer it without first changing the question. Because I think the way we’ve been taught to think about breast cancer is far too small.