A. It is difficult. Sometimes, you feel like when you’re diagnosed, that the doctors and nurses are looking at you and feeling very sorry for you. As a patient, sometimes you mistake that for “they think you’re going to die.’’ As I look back now, I feel like they were looking [that way] because they know how hard the treatment’s going to be. You thought having two kids and a full-time job was hard? You haven’t seen anything.
Q. You talk about getting a lot of strength from other people going through treatment, people you met in hospital waiting rooms and elsewhere.
A. For me, that was a constant theme of being sick. There was always somebody who was dealing with something far more challenging than I was facing. You say, if they can face this, I certainly can do this.
Q. Sometimes that must have been more anxiety-provoking than inspiring, though, no?
A. The difficult thing, as I face this five-year anniversary, is facing it without some of the people I met along the way. I guess I was kidding myself in the past when I thought breast cancer was about pink ribbons and walks. The toll I have seen it take on - particularly on young women with young children, has been horribly painful. It makes me very sad and very determined that we have to do more. These treatments that are prolonging life - great. But we need to find cures.
Q. Was it challenging to be so public about your disease?
A. It was an incredibly positive experience to go out in Boston and have people say - even today - “how are you doing?’’ The flip side is some pain that the public feels, they share with me, and that’s difficult, too. By going public, I’ve had opportunities to try to do something about [my frustration with the lack of a cure]. My coping mechanism is to try to help.
Q. Do you have any advice for people whose friends or loved ones are going through treatment now - things they shouldn’t say to cancer patients?
A. That “you have the perfect head for being bald.’’ If one more person told me that, I was going to wring their perfectly coiffed head! People mean well, but you go: Really? Really? I don’t think so.
Q. Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer organization, has been in the news recently for withdrawing and then reinstating its financial support for breast exams via Planned Parenthood. What do you think of the controversy?
A. Having access to important things like mammograms shouldn’t be a political issue. But it got us all talking about the importance of access to care - and that’s something we should be talking about in America.
Q. People with life-threatening diseases often talk about how the challenge made them stronger. Was that your experience?
A. My life is better than it was five years ago, hands down. I appreciate life more. I have so many amazing people in my life now - and that’s because of breast cancer.
KAREN WEINTRAUB
