Hi, I’m Amy
They gave me cancer. I gave it back. And today — at 59 — I feel better than I did at 40.
But let’s back up. Because this midlife wellness journey didn’t start with cancer.
I Grew Up Doing Everything
I’m a Pacific Northwest girl, born and raised — and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I grew up on a small farm, riding horses, helping with the cows, pigs, and ducks, and spending summers camping with my family and boating around the Sound with my grandparents. In my early teens I was at the roller rink every chance I got (and yes, roller skating is making a comeback — I’m here for it). As a young adult I skied (snow and water), raced sailboats, rode motorcycles on long road trips, and generally lived like someone who had no idea what “slowing down” meant.
Then came college, a career in the fashion industry as a retail buyer and merchandise planner, a pivot into systems design and support, and somehow — don’t ask me how — I ended up at Microsoft. Yes, from fashion to tech. Life is weird and wonderful like that.
At 39, I met Darren. We got married, had two beautiful, amazing daughters (who are now teenagers), and moved to an island in the Pacific Northwest — genuinely one of the best places on earth to call home. We’re happily living life our way, along with our two mini dachshunds, two cats, and a parakeet named Mr. Bird.
Life was full. Life was good.
And then I looked at a photo of myself on the couch — and everything changed.
The Wake-Up Call I Didn’t See Coming
My daughters were little. I was busy, tired, and not paying attention to myself in any meaningful way.
Then I saw a photo they’d taken of me sitting on the couch.
I was overweight. I looked exhausted. And the second I saw it I thought — what the hell has happened to me?
Because I felt exactly as bad as I looked.
I didn’t have a lot of extra time. I didn’t have money to throw at some program that sounded good but probably wasn’t. So I did what made sense to me — I started researching, picked two simple changes to make, and I tracked what I did.
Those two changes started making a real difference almost immediately.
And that was all the motivation I needed to keep going on my new midlife wellness journey.
That moment — that couch photo, those two changes, that first small win — became the foundation of everything I do at RustiChic Wellness. Because I learned something that day that I’ve proven to myself over and over again since:
You don’t have to fix everything at once. You just have to start.
Your midlife wellness journey doesn’t have to be expensive, hard, or a chore that you don’t look forward to.
Then April 2024 Hit
I’d been taking my health seriously for years by then. I was stronger, more energetic, and more in tune with my body than I’d been in decades.
Which made it all the more shocking when, at 57, during a routine breast exam, my doctor told me I had breast cancer.
I was absolutely floored.
Within two months I’d had an MRI, seen multiple oncologists and surgeons, and undergone a double mastectomy with multiple lymph nodes removed. The final diagnosis: stage 3 invasive lobular carcinoma. What followed was months of chemo and 15 rounds of radiation.
I was a bald, fucking mess.
I was dealing with a body that felt foreign to me — obliterated hormones, anxiety I’d never experienced before in my life, brain fog, exhaustion that went bone-deep. Midlife symptoms I’d already been managing got ten times worse. And I was doing all of it while raising two teenagers and taking care of my elderly father.
The overwhelm was real. The fear was real. The chaos was completely real.
But so was the wellness foundation I’d spent years building.
I Leaned into Everything I Had
The process that had worked for me on the couch — awareness, education, small deliberate changes, tracking, adjusting — I leaned back into it with everything I had left.
I learned everything I could about what cancer treatment does to the body. What chemo kills along with the cancer. What radiation does to your system. And most importantly, what your body needs to rebuild. I went deep on hormones, sleep, nutrition, movement, mental health, nervous system recovery — all of it.
And then I went even further.
I started learning about what our modern world is doing to all of us — the food, the pace, the chronic stress, the way the healthcare system is set up to treat illness rather than prevent it. How big pharma and the health industry profit from us staying sick. Why so many women feel like shit and get told their labs are “normal.”
Two years later — I feel better than I did at 40.
Not despite everything I went through. Because of what I learned going through it.
Why RustiChic Wellness Exists
I’m not a doctor. I’m not a certified health coach. I don’t have letters after my name.
What I have is a process that has worked for me — repeatedly, under the hardest conditions imaginable — and a genuine obsession with understanding why it works.
I built RustiChic Wellness because the tools I needed didn’t exist in the form I needed them. So I created them. Every workbook, every guide, every resource I publish contains the real, practical, research-backed information and frameworks I used to rebuild my own health — packaged in a way that works for real women living real, busy, complicated lives.
No extremes. Or guilt. No “start fresh on Monday” bullshit.
Just what actually works — built by someone who had no choice but to figure it out.
This Is for You If…
You’re a woman in midlife who is done feeling off, done being dismissed, and done with wellness advice that doesn’t fit your actual life.
Maybe you’re navigating perimenopause or menopause. Or you’re exhausted and can’t figure out why. Maybe you’ve been through something hard — a diagnosis, a loss, a season of life that took everything you had — and you’re trying to find your way back to yourself.
Maybe you just saw a photo of yourself and thought what the hell has happened?
Whatever brought you here — you’re in the right place.
Let’s Do This Together
I share real, no-BS wellness information for our midlife wellness journeys every month in the RustiChic Wellness Newsletter — along with tools, resources, and the kind of honest conversation that most wellness brands are too polished to have.
If you haven’t grabbed the free Midlife Pivot Towards Wellness guide yet, start there. It’s the same place I’d tell a friend to start.
Or if you’re ready to go deeper, explore the full RustiChic Wellness workbook library — built on the exact system that took me from that couch to feeling better than I have in decades.
I’m really glad you’re here.
— Amy
theRustiChic.com | @rustichicwellness
RustiChic Wellness content is for personal use, reflection, and guidance only — not a substitute for professional medical advice. I’m not a medical professional. I’m a woman who did the work, documented what worked, and is sharing it. Always make choices that support your own health and wellbeing.