Catherine Guthrie

The poster on the left greeted me in the lobby of my yoga studio this week. It inspired me to make the poster on the right. Since I’m a reporter, I made a couple of calls. Deborah Lattimore, the mighty woman in the photo, was a joy and an inspiration. She gave me permission to use her photo. She took the photo of herself during treatment for breast cancer and uploaded to the interactive feature Picture Your Life After Cancer on the New York Times. She wanted to counter the popular narrative of mastectomy patients looking sad and victimized. Her photo will appear in an upcoming book jointly published by the New York Times and the American Cancer Society. My second call, to the event coordinator at the brewery, didn’t go as well.  She said she knows nothing about the poster or the event other than the fact that the brewery donated a keg. (PS. Alcohol increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer.)

Since this poster is woefully short on facts, I thought I’d list a few I gathered yesterday while reporting an upcoming (unrelated) article on breast cancer for a major women’s magazine.

1.5 million=women diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide this year

500,000=women will have recurrences (most will be counted as “cured” because the recurrence is more than 5 years after their initial diagnosis and research only tracks women for 5 years. Of these second-timers (myself included) 1 in 3  will die of the disease.

$3.3 billion=amount spent on mammograms in the US each year

$16.5 billion=annual cost of breast cancer treatment in the US

30=percentage of breast cancers overdiagnosed and overtreated

For every 2,000 women screened…

       1 life will be prolonged

       10 will be treated unnecessarily

$1 billion=annual amount invested in breast cancer research in the US

830=resolutions and bills with the words “breast cancer” introduced in the US Congress since 1991

91=number of breast cancer drugs under evaluatation by the FDA

0=number of women cured

More than 40 years and billions of dollars have not ended breast cancer. It has, however, created a robust cancer industry that thrives on raising awareness and producing drugs, screening devices, and genetic tests.

(Sources of all stats and end quote: National Breast Cancer Coalition)

It’s time to change the conversation.

Rick Bragg is one of my favorite Southern writers. A Pulitzer Prize winner and former correspondent for the New York Times, Bragg owns one of the most memorable voices I’ve ever heard. Last month, I was reading Somebody Told Me, a collection of his newspaper stories, when I came across his definition of survivor. Although he’s not explicitly referring to breast cancer survivors (a phrase I’ve always disliked), his explanation of why he chose to use the word survivor instead of victim hit home with me:

At first I wanted to call this chapter “Victims,” but that cheapened the people I wrote about. I decided on “Survivors” because so many of the people herein were seized by an outside force, terrified or damaged, and let loose to try and live again. I like these people because of their backbone. I do not mind that some of them became haters. Some of them had a right.

At the beginning of January, Mary and I relocated to the Boston area for six months. The change of scenery has been a true gift. That’s a topic for another time…first, I feel like an explanation is in order. Maybe not a big one, but a little one would be nice. I’d like to pin my absence on sheer distraction. And, it’s true. I’ve been caught up in moving, settling in, and exploring an amazing new city. But a chunk of my being AWOL is the breast cancer fatigue that settled over me once I finished “active” treatment. (I don’t know if “active” is an official term or not, but I’m using it to refer to the outrageous stuff, like surgery, chemo, and radiation.) But then I realized that, by not writing about my “passive” treatment, I might be contributing to a common misconception about breast cancer —that treatment ends after the “big” stuff. Unfortunately not even close. Those aggressive, we-need-to-almost-kill-you-before-we-cure-you interventions are just the beginning. For 5 to 10 years post-diagnosis, the majority of us must swallow daily pills and/or receive monthly injections of anti-estrogenics, drugs that deprive our bodies of estrogen. (That’s because most breast cancers cells feed on estrogen and the goal is to starve the little buggers.) But these powerful anti-estrogens have huge repercussions, especially in pre-menopausal women. The list of common side effects includes joint pain, insomnia, fatigue, hot flashes and loss of libido. I’m not sure why I want people to understand that treatment goes on for years and years. Maybe because it’s just too depressing to see the mixture of relief and worry in people’s eyes when they look at me and say, “well, at least it’s over.” The one shitty thing I know for sure about cancer is that it’s not over ’til it’s over.

I’ve been dreading this day for as long as I can remember. Three years ago, when Mary brought up the fact that I was closing in on the big 4-0, I turned on my heel and walked out of the room, indignant that she would say such a hateful thing. But, after two years of arm wrestling with breast cancer, I can honestly say I’m thrilled to be turning 40. Cancer changed me, whether for better or worse is still to be seen. But it struck me recently when I heard someone say that aging is a privilege not a right. Today, I feel extremely privileged.

Oy, I finished radiation and immediately got walking pneumonia. I know…I’m the luckiest girl you know, right? Apparently radiation to the chest wall makes one more vulnerable to the lung crud. So I hacked myself silly for two weeks, during which time I barely crawled out of bed and had to bug out of some assignments. But, thank goodness, a round of antibiotics did the trick and I’m feeling MUCH better. My immune system needs some serious TLC, but I recovered just in time to go on a hiking trip with Mary and my family over Thanksgiving, so I’m grateful for small favors, as my grandmother used to say, “bigger ones solicited.”