Celebrate life with cancer survivors
Disease ‘doesn’t discriminate,’ says young breast cancer patient
When Karen Wall first discovered a lump in her breast, she never imagined it could be cancer. Neither, in fact, did her doctor. While it’s reported that almost 80 per cent of young women discover breast abnormalities themselves, breast cancer in women under the age of 40 is still relatively uncommon. So, with no history of breast cancer in her family, Wall and her doctor proceeded with treatment of the lump as if it were an infection of some kind. But, when antibiotics failed to reduce the mass in her breast, Wall was sent for an ultrasound and biopsy. The results, she was told, were cancerous. Wall was 27 years old.
“In some way, I felt like I knew it was going to be bad news, but that still didn’t help the shock,” she recalls of the diagnosis. “I laughed in disbelief, I cried, and I faced a few of the darkest days I’ve faced in my life.”
Wall quickly realized she had two options following her diagnosis: do something, or do nothing. And doing nothing simply wasn’t much of an option at all.
“Doing nothing isn’t really a viable option, so really you have no choice,” she says.
It was this side of cancer — the face-it-or-ignore-it-and-facethe-consequences aspect — that led Wall to cringe when she heard people call her “courageous.”
“I hated being told (that),” she says. “(And) still hate being told.”
Instead, she tried to make the best of what she refers to as her “situation,” asking friends to tag along with her to chemotherapy appointments in order to help pass the time and provide a welcome distraction.
“(I’d) play mad libs with the other patients and nurses,” she says. “I try to live my life focusing on the good.”
While undergoing treatment, she also found support from a group of women who she felt could understand what she was feeling and going through during her battle with breast cancer. That group was Rethink Breast Cancer, an organization dedicated to raising awareness and providing support for young women with breast cancer.
“Rethink provided me with a group of women who I could relate to,” she says. “When I was diagnosed I felt so alone. I was only 27 and at the start of my career.”
Wall says she found solace in the fact that, through Rethink’s support network, she wasn’t, in fact, alone anymore. Wall participated in group talks and activities, even attending a retreat that Rethink puts on each year for “thrivers and survivors” of breast cancer.
“It was a chance to get away from the ‘real world’ and connect with peers,” Wall says of the experience.
The women she connected with via the group were open and nonjudgmental about their cancer diagnoses. Because, believe it or not, Wall says, people readily pass judgment upon learning about someone’s experience with the disease.
Wall says the misunderstanding surrounding the randomness and potentially universal susceptibility of breast cancer is one major aspect of the disease she wishes more people were aware of.
“It doesn’t discriminate, and it’s not anyone’s ‘fault,’” she says of cancer. “You can be healthy, and do all the right things, and still get a diagnosis at a young age.
“That’s why it’s so important to not only perform self-exams, but also to help contribute to finding a cure for this disease.”
One way to do that is to get involved in initiatives and events benefiting the cause during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And one such event happening in Vancouver is the Boobyball.
The annual event began as an opportunity to show support for a friend or family member affected by cancer and has grown into a multi-city fundraising event in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary.
The Boobyball, which this year boasts a theme of Wild West, is as much a celebration of those impacted by the disease as it is an opportunity for all in attendance to let loose for an evening. That idea of embracing the here and now, even if for just one night, is one that Wall strongly identifies with following her battle with breast cancer.
“No one’s time here is promised, so we should be living life each day being grateful for what we do have,” Wall says.
That positive mindset, she says, is necessary after a cancer diagnosis. Because one’s life, she says, will never be the same again.
“A lot of people think that when you’re ‘done’ with active treatment things go back to normal. But you will never be the same person you were before your diagnosis,” she says.
“Even if you’re lucky enough to be declared NED (no evidence of disease) you will always worry. And some treatments have lifelong effects on your body, as well. So even your body will never be the same.
“You are never ‘done’ with cancer.”