SPEAKER: I need to plan for my future. If I plan scan-to-scan, which is every three to six months, it's no way to live. My name's Lindsay Curtis. In June of 2016, my journey with advanced breast cancer-- also known as metastatic breast cancer, began.

Metastatic breast cancer is incurable. So it is about controlling it, not curing it. However, the interesting thing about our illness is once you can get it more chronic, it's still-- as my friend says, radical uncertainty that we live with. But you have, I have days of also incredible normalcy.

you know, I have a very full life, but I have scans all the time. I am on oral chemo every day. And that's the tricky part of our disease. You want to cherish each day, but if you're just living for just tomorrow you can't build a future. My doctor will say this is not a death sentence. We want you to plan. We want you to get on with your life. She told me a cautionary tale of a patient she had who's looked at a statistic and said my life's over in five years I'm not going to plan for the future, I'm going to blow my money, whatever.

She came back, it was five years, she's doing great. She burst out in tears. She said, I wasn't planning to live past now.

So I've not planned. I don't have things I'm passionate. I don't have a purpose. I don't have relationships.

My medication I'm on for 4 and 1/2 years only came out maybe a couple years before I was diagnosed. Since I was diagnosed a testing showed I have a mutation that I have a next line of treatment that's only been out the last couple of years. So that's how quickly things are changing.

Of course, we want to shoot for a cure, but until that happens, I think more and more, we're going to see people living with this longer and longer.

My own oncologist at M.D. Anderson was joking around. She was like, do you have a boyfriend? (LAUGHS) She's just like, come on, get on with your life. Like you're good. Date.

You know, you get a lot of different reactions. How do you talk about it? You've got to respect them enough to know they're an adult, it's their choice. You're not putting them through something.

As long as you're honest and open, they can handle it. You have to give people that opportunity, you know, and know what you see is a weakness to it, they might see as a strength. I think one of the most important things you can do is having purpose, relationships.

For me, working with kids is just every day it just gives me meaning. It is the most amazing feeling. Just finding that purpose to keep you going-- just thinking back to when I was a newly diagnosed patient, if I just had a place to go and see that it was even possible to live that long. Because all you see are very scary statistics.

I didn't know, really, that long-term survivors existed. Wonderful ladies who have lived 10, 15, 20 plus years, having full lives and purpose. I think it's good to plan for the future. My life is not over tomorrow. And that's the important thing.