Clinical psychologist Dr. Stephanie Hutcheson is a part of a sorority of sort for which she was not intentionally recruited, nor for whose membership she clamored. The initiation process included diagnosis, treatment, surgery scars, radiation and chemotherapy which are rites of passage for all breast cancer diagnoses. She has now been inducted into the society twice, having earlier this year fought her second battle with breast cancer and been given a good outcome by her doctor – no evidence of disease detected and no lymph node involvement. She is now transitioning out of active treatment and is now wondering what date she should mark as a survivor – whether it should be her first diagnosis or her second diagnosis, and whether it even matters. As for her new normal, she’s still working that out. What she knows for sure is that she’s glad to be alive, that she’s healthy and that she is at the end of treatment.

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