The Changing Face of Stage 4 Cancer: No Cure, but Years to LiveThanks to new treatments, some patients with the disease are living longer — leaving them in limbo for years.Credit...Ben Brewer for The New York TimesThe Changing Face of Stage 4 Cancer: No Cure, but Years to LiveThanks to new treatments, some patients with the disease are living longer — leaving them in limbo for years.Credit...Ben Brewer for The New York TimesListen · 13:35 min By Nina AgrawalNina Agrawal writes about changes in cancer diagnoses and treatments and what they mean for patients.June 12, 2026Kate Dietrick walked amid rows of 19th-century graves, stopping to read the epitaphs carved into headstones.

The ground, soft from a recent thaw, gave a little under her feet. A gust of wind ruffled her short hair.Kate, who is 42, had spent the morning shopping for a gravesite. This one seemed promising: The cemetery belonged to the synagogue she had joined after converting to Judaism, in 2021.

Its congregation was the oldest in the state — a detail that Kate, who dealt in history for a living, appreciated. And it was covered with tall, leafy trees that made it feel peaceful.Still, the thought of being there alone unsettled her. She had no children, and though she and her husband had been married almost 10 years, it was perfectly likely that after she died, he might remarry, live a long life and be buried with someone else.“I’m not going to be there, so I don’t know why I’m so bothered by it,” she said. “But it does feel a little lonely.”Kate has Stage 4 breast cancer.

Or, more specifically, Kate is currently living with and dying from Stage 4 breast cancer. That’s the truest way to put it, she says: It’s been almost four years since her diagnosis, so the disease almost resembles a chronic illness — except the specter of death hovers much nearer.She hopes to make it five years.

Five years would be long enough for her and her husband to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary with a cruise down the Danube. Long enough to celebrate her niece’s 8th birthday. Long enough, maybe, to hear a new Taylor Swift album.Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT