Faces of Hope

Pat Hastings

Breast, Ovarian and Metastatic Lung Cancer Survivor

In February 2023, Pat Hastings was driving to Methodist Hospital for a brain scan.

“I was praying to God for good results,” the three-time cancer survivor said. “That’s when I went through a red light and got T-boned. Totaled my car, cracked a rib. I’m lucky. I’m a cat.”

But having survived breast, ovarian and metastatic lung cancer, Pat knows she doesn’t need nine lives to appreciate the one she has.

“I don’t want to know my prognosis – how much time I have left,” she said. “Why not just live it up – live life – every chance you have?”

“Lucky” is how Pat describes much of her cancer journey, which started in 2002 with a routine mammogram that identified early stage breast cancer in her left breast.

The mother of two opted for a double mastectomy, which cured her of breast cancer. But a diagnosis of early stage ovarian cancer soon followed in 2003. 

“I had heard about a genetic link between breast and ovarian cancer, so when I went in for my last surgical follow-up, I asked my surgeon if that was true. He said it was. It dawned on me that I still had my ovaries. Within a week, I decided to have them removed, and one of them tested positive.”

No further treatment was needed.

But in 2022, Pat was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, which had spread to her brain and bones.

Having lost her husband to bladder cancer six years prior, Pat recalled thinking, “Why me, God?”

But since the beginning of her cancer journey, she’s had a team of people supporting her, including the ladies at Methodist’s Inner Beauty Salon, part of the Harper’s Hope Cancer Survivorship Program; her oncologist, Timothy Huyck, MD; and her son and daughter, who continue to “live it up” with their mother every chance they get.

Pat offers this advice to others: “Don’t worry about the little things in life. Pick your battles. Are they really it worth it? Don’t wait for a diagnosis to realize that life is about so much more than all that. It’s about those who love you. Don’t wait to start living life with them.”