Sara Lund, the drummer for the post-hardcore band Unwound, has been diagnosed with breast cancer. In a Sept. 27 Instagram post, as well as a GoFundMe page, the musician revealed that she was diagnosed with Invasive Lobular Carcinoma in the left breast on April 18 after going in for a routine mammogram.
“Dearest people, 6 months ago I had the delightful misfortune of being diagnosed with breast cancer. Invasive Lobular Carcinoma with lymph node involvement,” she wrote, adding that the diagnosis came “totally out of left field… I have never in my life considered the possibility that I might get cancer. Luckily I dutifully get mammograms every year and so we were able to catch it early on.”
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Although Lund’s diagnosis did not require chemotherapy, she wrote that she has since undergone “lots of tests, waiting, surgeries, more tests, more waiting, and radiation.” On July 29, the drummer underwent a lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node biopsy, later followed by 16 rounds of radiation. In her Sept. 27 update, she said she was set to undergo endocrine therapy, which “will be its own journey as I experiment with various hormone suppression treatments and their varying side effects.”
The treatment and recovery are not only “challenging in all the ways mental, physical, emotional,” per the GoFundMe, but also financially. “Being a lifer indie musician in no way prepares you for this type of financial setback,” her friend Janet Weiss wrote. Lund said that she received her diagnosis “right in the middle of a big move and I have been unable to establish a new teaching practice or find other work in my new city of Tacoma. It has been a brutally anxious several months with bills piling up and my energy sapped by treatments and recovery.” The GoFundMe page was created to help cover the costs of medical bills and living expenses as Lund undergoes treatment.
Reflecting on her diagnosis, Lund “realized I was never really afraid of dying from this. My main concern was how it would affect my ability to play drums and how soon I could get back behind the kit and how the surgery and recovery would interfere with the Unwound tours we had booked for this year.”
The Pacific Northwest post-hardcore Unwound recently reunited for their first tour since their 2002 breakup. The group is set to embark on a West Coast tour before heading to Australia, with Lund set to join the group for the shows. She said that after “spending the bulk of this year as a cancer patient, I have been holding tight to the dream that I would be able to play these upcoming shows and it was a huge morale boost once I finally knew I would make it.”
