Living with cancer
Despite the many frustrations and quagmires of navigating the medical system, Libby remained determined to embrace life and live it to the fullest – even while undergoing her treatments. She played tennis the morning after chemotherapy, for example, and took on a new job while still receiving treatments.
Libby also writes about what she calls “cancer-lite” – the lighter side of living with the disease – such as the task of selecting a wig. After narrowing her choices down to four styles, she had photographs taken so her National Post readers could vote on their favourite. (The top picks are featured in the book.)
“I remember, at the beginning, wondering: ‘How long can I go without thinking about this?'” Libby says. What helped was finding distractions, whether through work, family or maintaining, as much as possible, her busy social life. “I’m a party-girl!” she laughs. “I didn’t want to just stay at home because this had happened… also, (finding the lump in my breast) made me think, Gee, I might not have much time to live and do all the things I want to do.”
She credits exercise for boosting both her stamina and her spirits. “Exercise helped me continue doing so many of the activities I like and not get depressed,” she says. “Of course, I was extremely fortunate. Some women can’t exercise because the side affects of chemo are too severe. I was also helped by my diagnosis – it turned out to be not as bad as I thought initially.”
With regards to exercise and chemotherapy, a recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology bears out Libby’s experience. Researchers at the University of Alberta found that workouts can improve quality of life, boost self-esteem, and even help women get through their chemotherapy treatments on schedule.
However, cancer patients considering exercise should always talk to their doctor first, researchers said.
Leaving Cancerland
Cancerland, Libby maintains, can be a state of mind as well as a place. But it is definitely a place – a place you can leave at some point. And how has the journey changed her?
“Maybe I find it easier to enjoy life, not so much as in not-sweating-the-small-stuff because I do… but because I see what I went through as a “near-death” experience – and this makes me to want to live life more fully.”
She adds, “Out of every experience in my life, this was the most vivid… now I think why not try to bring this vividness to other experiences?”
Beyond ‘survivor’
One other thing: Libby hates the word survivor.
“The sound of the word makes my hair stand on end. Or it would if I had more hair. When I hear the word survivor, I don’t think of myself or the other women I know who have had breast cancer. It conjures up an image that is much darker,” she writes, by way of explanation.
In the 1980s, largely through the work of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS), people with cancer were no longer referred to as victims, but survivors – an important advance at the time, Libby says.
