I’m lucky to be here today. In this space. With the ability to feel the sun on my face. Safe—truly safe. Not even wondering about the what-ifs. Just here.
And I’m not just talking about cancer—the fact that I beat stage 4 twice and made it through a shit-ton of health issues after. People don’t realize that I’m still living with those issues. Honestly, I don’t always realize how grateful I am. Because the truth is, my life is still paralyzed in so many ways.
Cancer didn’t just take my preteen years; it took my teens too. And now it lingers in my twenties. People think life after cancer is like life before—but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Sometimes it even feels worse, because the thing that tried to kill me is gone, and the chance of it coming back is slim now that I’m five years cancer-free. But survival comes with its own price.
Everything has a cost—even the triumph of beating cancer twice.
I live with a heart block. Sometimes my heart just stops. I’m severely anemic, dangerously vitamin D deficient. My neuropathy is so bad some days I can’t walk. Most people don’t even know that on a day-to-day basis, I don’t feel my body. I’ve lost sensation completely. It’s a strange kind of crippling—seeing your arms and legs, knowing they’re there, but not actually feeling them.
Now, I’m facing health issues I don’t even have a name for. I get so sick that the people around me question the longevity of my life. I throw up, sometimes blood, for hours, for days. My heart stops. My oxygen doesn’t flow right. I can’t breathe.
And still, people don’t realize how real it is.
Yet I still show up. I laugh. I dance. I go out. I make connections. For months, people thought I was drunk—but it was just water in my cup. Because being sick doesn’t mean I stop living.
These days, it feels different. My health is tied to my emotions, my mood, the way people treat me. For years, I thought I was stoic, unfeeling. But my body proves otherwise. It tells me: you feel everything deeply.
And it’s true—I carry other people’s pain until it makes me sick. Energy vampires are real. The cords we tie to others can weigh us down.
But here’s the truth: I can’t fix anyone. I can’t build you. I’m not Bob the Builder. I can’t even fix myself. I can’t change the body I was born into, this vessel I’ll live in until God calls me home.
What I can do is sit with you, talk with you—but not fix you. I can’t undo what’s happening in my body. I can’t undo what cancer did. But I can live with it. I can grow from it. I can refuse to let it paralyze me.
Everyone says I’m too nice—but they don’t see the fire rising in me now. They don’t see my capabilities. They don’t see that even weak in the knees, I am still Breonna Brown. And there’s fire inside of me.
Maybe some people don’t want me to rise. And maybe, for a long time, I didn’t want to either. Because rising might mean leaving some people behind, leaving part of me behind that felt safe. And I wasn’t sure I could handle that.
At 15, when I was literally dying, I clung to anyone who would stay. I thought my love would be enough to make the bad feelings go away. Now, at 23, I know better. The only people my love will always, fully, without question be enough for are me and my kids. That’s all I need.
No more people-pleasing. No more reshaping myself for others. I just need myself, my kids, and God. That’s enough.
Because even though my body betrays me, my mind doesn’t have to. The mind is the most powerful thing we have. What we feed it matters. Who we let creep into it matters. If you let the wrong people in, if you tie yourself to the wrong energy, you’ll end up like me—sick for days, triggered, unsafe, questioning if you’re going to live or die.
I am Bri Brown. I am sick. I’m an ex-cancer patient. A neuropathy patient. I have a heart condition. On paper, I am a list of diagnoses. But the wisdom and power I hold are longer than that list. I am enough. And my body is enough, too.
This summer proved it. This September, I’m settling in it.
Eight years since I was first diagnosed—and even just writing that brings tears to my eyes. And that’s fine. Because being alive isn’t always pretty. Being alive is still healing from the trauma my twelve- and fifteen-year-old self endured and struggling to move past it. Being alive is throwing up blood at 3 a.m. and still making breakfast for your kids. Being alive is being doubted, misunderstood, talked about—and still keeping your heart pure. Being alive is fighting battles no one will ever see while they think you’re fine because you smiled at them.
But survival itself is holy.
The fact that I’m here is a miracle. And I refuse to water that down to make anyone else comfortable.
So yeah—I’m 23. Eight years into this version of me. I’ve got scars that will outlive me. A body that betrays me. A heart that stops and starts.
But I’ve also got joy. Fire. Light. Kids that love me. A God who keeps me. And a future I refuse to let anyone take from me.
If you’re looking for the point, it’s this: I don’t need perfect health, perfect love, or perfect friendships to keep going.
I just need the will to keep rising.
And I have that—always.
