Three years ago today, I was standing in my kitchen preparing our holiday menu. That was the day my best friend, Vicki, called to tell me she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer. I’ll never forget how I gasped for air as she simultaneously gasped for words. All she could muster was, “I have cancer. I want to tell my 2nd graders, but I don’t want to scare them.” I gained enough composure to tell her that I’d find the perfect book to help the 2nd graders in her classroom, and that I’d be there for her anytime day or night.
Today, my friend called me again with a cancer diagnosis. This time, however, she was standing in my shoes. Her best friend since childhood received the news today: “you have breast cancer.” As I heard her mirror my feelings of three years ago, that overwhelming air-sucking feeling came over me again. Vicki was painfully confused as she mentally moved from survivor to co-survivor. She hadn’t seen it coming and yet, without any preemptive news flash, cancer had invaded her life again.
At first, I wanted to shout “NO.” I wanted to get mad, really mad at cancer! I wanted to make it go away—I hate cancer revisiting my friend’s life in this way. Within moments of our conversation, I again realized that I have no power to erase cancer. Yet, I do have Hope, and I can ease the pain it creates. I can advocate so that others understand cancer’s impact. I can embrace the children walking alongside adults with cancer—just like when I wrote the book my friend needed for her 2nd graders. I can be a messenger of Hope.
Just yesterday, I booked a plane ticket for Nashville. My purpose was to attend a special outreach for cancer patients next week. I now realize that outreach will be an overflowing vessel of Hope for another outreach. As I pour it out to cancer patients, I will be filled with renewed Hope. That’s the beautiful contagious nature of Hope; as you pour it out, more pours in.
I will visit my best friend and pour renewed Hope into her heart to be magnified for her friend who’s now facing the battle. It’s no coincidence that my outreach event is scheduled less than an hour from Vicki. I believe it is all part of God’s plan to remind me that Huge Outcomes are Possible Everyday—that is the power of H.O.P.E. It can outshine anything, even cancer.
Maryann Makekau, Author & Inspirational Speaker (www.becausehopematters.com)
Cancer is a crisis of the body, mind, and spirit. It literally brings one face to face with death. But as astounding as it might sound, helping others stricken with the disease and fighting against it can make a survivor stronger and ultimately happier.
“What is Breast Cancer Advocacy?,” a recent panel discussion at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, sponsored by TalkAboutHealth and Women at Risk, the Center’s breast cancer program, focused on the political struggle to find a cure. But the speakers also discussed how advocacy has helped and changed them.
Deborah Aruta of SHARE, a New York City breast and ovarian cancer support group, talked about the rewards of advocacy. “Until my diagnosis I had a completely different career,” said Aruta, a breast cancer survivor. “I was a packaging designer for high-end fragrances. Once I was diagnosed my life became a lot less superficial and a lot more meaningful. Just being involved with something and caring about something has been so rewarding. I think even the people that surround me, my friends and my family, can see this major change in me.”
Before her diagnosis seven years ago, Nancy Singleton had a great life as a chef. If asked what she knew about breast cancer, she would’ve replied “that it happened to other people,” said Singleton, a patient navigator for Women at Risk. “I don’t feel that I ever did anything really for anybody else. Since this diagnosis, it’s so satisfying to help another woman. And it’s amazing how it comes in a circle. Women that I see, in the middle having chemo they’re saying, ‘This lady helped me so much, I want to give back.’” Singleton spoke of “an amazing circle” of advocates helping patients who become new advocates. “It’s a wonderful experience.”
“It’s very empowering,” said Elizabeth Wohl, a delegate to the National Breast Cancer Coalition’s board of directors. “Cancer is something that you really have no control over,” said Wohl, whose daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 34. But through advocacy, one gets a “feeling of empowerment, of taking back control for yourself.”
Singleton pointed out that advocacy can take many forms. A forum like TalkAboutHealth can be very helpful, she said. “When I was diagnosed there was a lot of nights I didn’t sleep. I’d get up in the middle of the night and think ‘What can I do?’” TalkAboutHealth is a place to turn in moments like that, Singleton said. “If I have an half an hour I’ll go to it and I’ll talk to a newly diagnosed patient, or [patients’] husbands and wives can talk about other husbands and wives. There’s other ways, a million ways, to give back or to get involved, and I think it makes a difference. It really does.”
Maria Elena Perez, an attendee at the talk, said she was moved by the kindness and concern shown to her by Columbia-Presbyterian’s radiation oncology department when she underwent her treatment. “By them treating me like that at the worst time in my life, so well and so supportive to me when I was going these tough times,” she realized that “I could make a difference like that too.”
Perez, a nurse at Columbia-Presbyterian, was inspired to transfer from pediatric cardiology to radiation oncology. She also created a Circle of Possibilities, an informal gathering of the parents’ of children patients and the nursing staff.
“We just chat to show that them we’re not just the nurses, but that we are also friends, mothers, we go through the same things that they go through,” said Perez. The New York Times selected her in a tribute to nurses and gave her an award for innovation for creating the program.
“Out of any bad experience that people endure something good comes,” Perez remarked.
Has helping others, whether it’s been political work or helping patients directly, helped you? Click here to share your thoughts and read the discussion.
Post by Nicholas - TalkAboutHealth Blogger and Journalist
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