Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
One day I went home and I touched the top of my breast
and there was like pain.
And when I went back to work, I told one of my coworkers and
she said "Cynthia, your breast is nothing to play with."
"Get on the phone and make an appointment to
the Breast Clinic."
I didn't go in there thinking that it was going to be cancer.
She said, "You have ductile adenocarcinoma."
I had an appointment with Dr. Saroyan.
My husband, I'll never forget it,
he looked up at Dr. Saroyan with his baseball cap turned
around backwards and the only thing he wanted to know was,
am I going to lose my wife?
He said, "So if you were my wife I would say have a lumpectomy
versus a mastectomy."
He says "I think I can go in there and get it all."
Dr. Saroyan was my hero, is my hero.
He saved my life.
He was able to go in and he was able to clean out the cancer
just like he said.
Dr. Dunham; she is so compassionate.
She is so loving.
She takes her time and she listens to you.
And she talks to you.
And she just makes you feel special.
What I immediately found out about her is that the treatment
really did impact her in a very real way as I think it does
most women and men who are going through these
life-changing therapies.
So I think she has really taken a lot of her experience
and turned it into this absolute force for good.
Not talking about it is the worst thing that you can do.
You know, you need to do self-breast exams and if there's
anything abnormal, take a picture, you know,
because the doctor might not feel it or see it.
Take a picture; you know.
Document everything and take it to the hospital with you.
So this is something that needs to be talked about.
I've heard different people connect weight, over obesity
with recurrence of cancer so that has made me realize
that I was too big.
I figured I had been saved from cancer.
I did not want to die of high blood pressure or
high cholesterol, heart attack, diabetes.
I exercise an hour every morning before I come to work.
When I'm here I walk around.
So 60 minutes of exercise every day.
I'm checking how much salt, how much sodium,
you know, how much sugar, how many calories.
You know, I'm conscious of that now.
I have plenty of reasons to have good health.
I have four children, eight grandchildren
and two great grandchildren.
So they're the reason why I decided to live the way
that I'm living now.
So that's my story.