White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has described, in her own words, what it was like to undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer while continuing to run the day-to-day operations of President Donald Trump’s White House.
In an op-ed published Sunday in USA Today, Wiles wrote that the disease occupied her thoughts from the moment she woke up, and sometimes even while she slept. Questions about treatment, test results and what might come next could overtake even a strong mind, she said. “Fighting cancer is brutal and unrelenting,” Wiles wrote, adding that at times those questions overtook hers.
She said some days she poured her strength into fighting the disease. On others, simply getting out of bed, getting dressed and going to work was its own test. “Most days, I carried the full weight of both,” she wrote.
Wiles said work gave her a purpose beyond appointments, scans and side effects, even as cancer threatened to shrink her world. She pushed herself to stay focused on the people who depended on her, she wrote, even while aware that others might question whether she could still lead effectively.
The treatment affected her stamina, mobility and, at times, her focus, and she said she could not always be everywhere she wanted to be. She credited colleagues inside and outside the White House, along with her two daughters, extended family, friends and medical team, with helping carry her through the illness.
Wiles was careful to note that working through treatment would not be right, or possible, for everyone. For her, she wrote, the job helped her hold on to a sense of who she was beyond the disease.
She said pathology after successful surgery showed no residual cancer, and that she is now working to rebuild what treatment took from her. “Chemotherapy is, in a word, a b—-,” she wrote.
In a post on X Sunday, Wiles said she rarely writes about herself but wanted to share what it was like to fight cancer while continuing a job she loves. “Cancer tried to make my world smaller. I was determined not to let it,” she wrote, saying she hoped her account could offer strength to someone still fighting the disease.
Wiles announced on Sept. 16 that she was cancer free, after receiving clear pathology results following an appointment at the Mayo Clinic. She had disclosed her early-stage breast cancer diagnosis in March. Trump praised her during treatment, saying in a prerecorded May tribute that she was winning her cancer battle; Wiles thanked him for his kindness and compassion and credited her family, friends, colleagues and doctors.
She closed her message with a note of hope for others facing treatment. “Cancer does not have to take away who you are,” she wrote, saying life beyond the disease includes serving Trump and the country and being a mother, grandmother and friend.
Her daughter, Katie Wiles, responded on X: “A strong woman isn’t loud in her strength; she’s steady and unshakable. You are our champion. So incredibly proud of you, Mom.”
