MEET BETHANY GREENWAY
Hello my name is Bethany Gambardella-Greenway and I’m a single mom to two amazing girls and stage 4 melanoma survivor. I grew up in New York just outside of the city. I got my degree in photography from Parsons School For Design a division of The New School.
My cancer story began in August 2016 with a mole surrounded by a liver spot on my forehead that was initially attributed to pregnancy hormones. As time passed that mole began to ache and I knew something was wrong, so I had it biopsied. The not so innocent spots turned out to be desmoplastic melanoma surrounded by regular melanoma that had spread to the lymph node in front of my left ear, this put me at stage 3a. The result of having the cancers removed was losing my left eyebrow and the muscle underneath.
After the surgery on my face I felt overwhelmed by the change. This wasn’t fun surgery like a nose job or breast enlargements. It was also 100 times more obvious. How do I handle this? I kept asking myself over and over. So I chose to show my face to the world and show them how scary skin cancer can be and started my melanoma photo diary on Facebook. If I can reach just one person and inspire them to go see the dermatologist and get that biopsy done then That’s what I need to do, I thought. So I did. I Took pictures and wrote daily. I still do. Mostly I keep the diary so I can enjoy spending time with friends and family and not have to give them a medical update every time I see someone new or have a new development in my health.
After writing for almost a year my Melanoma Photo Diary gained international attention, my little soap box became a podium. I am so grateful for this, my message of healing, self awareness, and paying attention to your body and the changes it makes is being heard. Because of my five minutes of fame, I was regularly contacted by other cancer patients asking for guidance and help. We would talk about navigating care, getting second opinions, advocating for scans and biopsies. This has been the most rewarding part of being very public about my experience fighting melanoma.
So far I’ve had seven surgeries to get my face back to where it was before cancer. At the moment my reconstruction is finished and my missing brow has been replaced by a very clever tattoo.
I began my first round of immunotherapy October 2016. After my first of 3 infusions of yervoy, I had 30 rounds of head and neck radiation. Then after my 15th infusion of yervoy my body began attacking itself. I almost died because of the autoimmune colitis caused by yervoy. What was saving my life was the same thing that was destroying my colon. I was hospitalized off and on over the summer of 2019. Finally I was given a different biologic drug that told my immune system my large intestines were not the enemy and I began to heal.
At this time I had no evidence of disease in my body and I was cancer free, or so I thought.
I began to rebuild my life after cancer and divorce. I restarted my career, bought my forever house, and continued to write about my cancer journey in my melanoma photo diary.
Everything was going fine in spite of a global pandemic and life as we knew it pivoting in the most unfathomable way. At the end of March 2021 I went in for my quarterly scans, and there had been a change in my liver. It was time to get back on the diagnostic roller coaster again and at the end of all the tests I found out I had graduated from stage 3a to stage 4 melanoma.
With that being said, I knew what lay ahead of me.
There was a tumor the size of a gumball on the fifth lobe of my liver, it had to be surgically removed and I had to go back on immunotherapy. After I had recovered from having the fifth lobe of my liver and gall bladder removed. I began immunotherapy again, this time it was Opdivo, whose side effects were similar to yervoy, but much different and at times worse. I was lucky enough to not experience anything devastating like the colitis, but still the havoc it caused my psyche was much worse. I was fighting this battle alone. Yes, I had my children, but I was and still am a single mother. My family all be it supportive were a thousand miles away in New York. At the end of the day when everyone was asleep, I only had myself to rely on.
You see so much of what cancer patients go through is mental. Yes, we endure so much physically, but once the hard stuff is over we are left with merely a shell of what once was. Every scan, biopsy, and test is an invitation to the rabbit hole of nightmare fuel filled with possibilities of death and destruction. Over time I learned that, Ruminating on what could be only ruins your day, regardless if you worry or not it will not alter the end result. So I choose to stay in the here and now, I can not control the future with worry. For me, all that medical hell was a forge and my inner strength iron, all of it has made me stronger and more confident.
What gets me through all the challenges and physical changes cancer treatment has dealt me has been my girls. I see all of it as a way to buy me more time with them and be present for them. I do this for them, I’m strong for them, I’m brave in the face of my own mortality to set an example for them. I don’t know where I would be without my girls.
For the last seven years this has been my world and strangely enough managing my own care feels like a second job.
Many other cancer survivors, fighters, and caregivers have reached out to me asking for guidance and support. We would talk about coping mechanisms, meditation, mindfulness, and living in the present. So many of the cancer fighters and caregivers also needed guidance on advocating for themselves or the loved ones they were caring for. This is something that I had learned quite a bit about being my own caregiver and advocate. I shared the strategies that have become second nature to me during my cancer journey.
The life experience I have had has made me rethink so much about my calling and life purpose.
Every time a new person would reach out to me I felt like I was making a difference. Then there was always the nagging question, “Why me?” Followed by, “Why this?” And then, “Why now?”
The answer to these questions is simply because it is time for me to use everything I have learned to help others. This is why I have decided to become a life coach for those facing cancer.