My experience with inflammatory breast cancer has been both wonderful and weird, even at the same time.
PUBLISHED April 02, 2018
Doris Cardwell received a life-changing diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer in 2007. While undergoing treatment, she co-founded a mentor program for the cancer center treating her. She also created community events to educate, encourage and empower people regarding cancer. Doris was the first Survivorship Community Outreach Liaison for her local cancer center. She is an advocate, educator and encourager on issues facing cancer survivors. Doris is a wife, mother, empty nester, survivor of life and lover of all things coffee. An avid speaker and blogger, she is available at www.justdoris.com.
My experience as an inflammatory breast cancer survivor can be described as both wonderful and weird. I can use the word wonderful because I have met so many incredible people along the way. Wonderful is a free fly fishing retreat in the beautiful North Carolina Mountains. Wonderful is how far we have come as a society that we can talk openly about cancer. Wonderful is opportunities to speak and share about this rare disease in hopes of saving a life.
It is weird because some things just are – like people assuming that they can ask you anything, just because you have had cancer. Some things are personal. Weird is hearing all the stories people tell you when they realize you are a survivor. You know, like "Aunt Sally, oh she had breast cancer, she died, it was awful.” How is that good for me to know? Weird is your body not functioning the way it did before cancer.
A counselor at my cancer center talked to me once about what she called equanimity. She held out both hands evenly and said it is when you can hold both good and bad equally in the same situation. Being a cancer survivor has been a constant exercise in this. Most of the time I have found difficulty in trying to express these kinds of thoughts.
It is weird because some things just are – like people assuming that they can ask you anything, just because you have had cancer. Some things are personal. Weird is hearing all the stories people tell you when they realize you are a survivor. You know, like "Aunt Sally, oh she had breast cancer, she died, it was awful.” How is that good for me to know? Weird is your body not functioning the way it did before cancer.
A counselor at my cancer center talked to me once about what she called equanimity. She held out both hands evenly and said it is when you can hold both good and bad equally in the same situation. Being a cancer survivor has been a constant exercise in this. Most of the time I have found difficulty in trying to express these kinds of thoughts.
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