Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Life Lessons From Breast Cancer Survivors
Life Lessons From Breast Cancer Survivors
These women say breast cancer made them happier, braver, more inspired. But changing your life can happen without a health crisis. Use their lessons to live like a survivor, starting now.
Say the love "When I was going through chemotherapy, another survivor told me that breast cancer was the 'best thing she would never wish on anybody.' I now know what she means. Facing the possibility of dying freed me up from sweating the small stuff. Before breast cancer, I wasn't as forthcoming with my feelings toward my friends and family. Now I say what's in my heart. When a friend of mine was having a difficult time in her life, I told her how brave and courageous I thought she was. There's no reason why we shouldn't share these things with the people in our lives, even when no one is sick." --GRETA BESENDORFER, 42, diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer seven years ago
on a mammogram or an ultrasound, so it's often caught very late. I'm a well-informed woman, and I'd never even heard of it! That made me angry. I decided to talk to everyone I knew about IBC. I told a roomful of sorority sisters; I told the almost-all-male board of a nonprofit I'm involved in, and asked them to go home and tell their wives; I even stood up in front of my church congregation one Sunday and asked them to spread the word. I felt that if talking could possibly save one other woman, it would be worth it. I am more open in general now--if you can discuss your breasts with perfect strangers, you can share anything." --THELMA M. SESSIONS, 60, diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer one year ago
Laugh at it
"Obviously I didn't invite breast cancer into my life. But somehow, through it all, my husband and boys (5 and 3 at the time) and I never stopped laughing. My youngest was fond of pointing at random bald men in the grocery store and happily exclaiming, 'Hey! My mommy doesn't have hair either!' Another time we were in hysterics when I had to grab both sides of my wig to keep it from launching off my head while on a free-fall amusement-park ride. My cancer's gone and my hair's back, so the wig's been given away. But our ability to laugh together, even when things are scary and hard, is something we'll always hold onto." --LORIE LAVINSON, 41, diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer three years ago
makes no sense to wait. If you want to do something, do it now." --LAUREN MAGLIARO, 34, diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer three years ago
on. Yes, first you cry, but it's what you do next that determines the rest of your life." --ANNEMARIE CICCARELLA, 55, diagnosed with Stage I breast cancer six years ago Take a stand "My mother died of breast cancer when I was 15; she had found a lump, but hadn't done anything about it. So when I felt one at 39, I rushed to see my ob/gyn. I asked for a mammogram, but he told me it was nothing to worry about-that if I'd just be patient, it would go away. A week later the lump was still there, so I went back, asking for it to be tested. He actually rolled his eyes! All I could think of was my mother. Refusing to let history repeat itself, I said, 'I will go straight out to the waiting room and tell everyone that even though my mother died of breast cancer and I have a lump, you won't give me a prescription for a mammogram.' Within a minute, I had the script in hand, and the proof that women need to be our own best advocates in life." --SANDRA STERNSTEIN, 44, diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer four years ago