I am now a five year survivor of breast cancer. I am seeing and living a time in my life that I wondered if I would ever reach when I received my diagnosis of breast cancer. Today, I would like to take a moment to remind everyone who thinks it won't happen to them to remember most breast cancer occurs in those without a family history of the disease. In my case my mother and sister had already been diagnosed with the disease, but I was still in denial when I suspected that I might have breast cancer. I recently had a chance to read a book of one lady's journey with this disease and had a chance to ask the author Anne Marie Bennett a few questions.How did you decide to write this book?
I was taking a walk one morning several months after my last radiation treatment, and I was thinking about my journey. Thinking it might be cool to write an article about my breast cancer experience for a magazine, I started forming beginning sentences in my mind, and when I got home, immediately sat down at the computer and wrote the first few pages of a rough draft. After that, I just kept doing the next thing (gathering my journal entries into one document, grouping them into time sequence, finding quotes to go with each section of the journey…etc). Then I realized that it was way too big of a story for a magazine article, so I allowed it to turn into a book.
Can you remember your reaction to being told your diagnosis of breast cancer?
Yes, vividly! My immediate reaction was absolute terror. It was a completely surreal situation. My thoughts went something like this: I can’t believe this is happening to me. I don’t WANT this to be happening to me. I don’t have time for this. Am I going to die? Get the cancer OUT of my body. And really, my immediate response was fear. I know some women whose basic emotion was anger, but I honestly didn’t feel a lot of anger. My main emotion, the one that had huge potential to keep me from the bright side, was fear.
What was the low point and high point in your recovery process?
For me, the low point was during the third and fourth chemo treatments, a segment of time that stretched over several weeks. I just didn’t feel like myself. I had no energy to sit at my art table and collage or paint or anything. The high point was three months after my treatments were finished. I went to a Living with Breast Cancer Retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in the Massachusetts Berkshires. It was a very healing experience to spend three days with 18 other breast cancer survivors and share our stories. We walked a labyrinth, did yoga, danced, ate healthy foods, tattooed ourselves (temporarily!). I learned some huge lessons in Trust during that weekend, and the whole adventure was a catalyst to a new direction in my life.
Has there been an enduring change in your view of life, importance of things and events due to the diagnosis and recovery from breast cancer?
Yes! I feel that one of the biggest gifts I received from the cancer was a major re-routing of my life. You know, I was going along, minding my own business, everything was status quo. And then, bam! A breast cancer diagnosis drops down from the sky and shatters all my predisposed notions of what my life was all about. I suddenly could see that all the things I worried and fretted over (my job at the theatre, the troubles with Jeff’s kids) were very small compared to what was happening inside my body and soul. A friend of mine in college used to talk about “the angels rearranging the furniture” inside of us, and I feel like that is exactly what happened to me during my cancer journey. My soul furniture has been rearranged!
I know in my own process they said as soon as you were diagnosed you could consider yourself a survivor of breast cancer. I couldn't view myself as a survivor until I was about a year out. At that point I had completed all therapy and overcome a lot of the residual tiredness from radiation and felt I had earned the title survivor. How about you, when did you adopt the survivor title?
When I was first diagnosed, I found a wonderful message board (www.bcsupport.org ) which labeled itself as a “meeting place for survivors.” I remember posting a message asking if I really belonged there because I hadn’t had my surgery yet, and the cancer was still in me. The answer I received reassured me that I had already survived a stereotactic core biopsy AND the breast cancer diagnosis, as well as having told several people about the cancer. From that point on, I called myself a Survivor!
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Anne Marie Bennett is a writer, self-taught collage artist, website goddess, cancer survivor and SoulCollage® Facilitator. She received a BS degree in Education from Southern Connecticut State University and has taught people of all ages throughout the East Coast. She has also worked as a bookseller, sheet presser, library assistant, computer consultant, and in theatre management. Anne Marie lives in eastern Massachusetts with her middle-aged husband (also a cancer survivor), two elderly cats and one very playful dog who keeps all of them young-at-heart. She is happiest when she is reading, writing, breathing salt air, dancing, and hugging her beautiful grandchildren.
For more information about Anne Marie’s book, Bright Side of the Road, please visit this page: http://www.annemariebennett.com/
To purchase the book, please visit this page: www.annemariebennett.com/how-to-purchase Bright Side of the Road is also available on Amazon.com (PLEASE LINK TO: http://tiny.cc/lf3HF
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