My Cancer Story

I’m a two-time breast cancer survivor with a BRCA gene mutation that increases my likelihood of getting the disease. When I was dealing with breast cancer, my mantra was “information is power.” My skills as a journalist came in handy to research the subject in depth. The resources I have gathered below may be helpful for anyone going through cancer, and I hope that some of the more light-hearted material I’ve included may make you laugh too!

Of course, I’m not a doctor and I can only tell you about what worked for me. Cancer is a crapshoot. There are numerous ways to treat it and no guarantees for success. That being said, the five year survival rate for early-stage non-metastatic breast cancer is close to 100%. Those are pretty good odds!

I underwent conventional treatment—lumpectomies, radiation and chemo as well as alternative therapies. Did I make the right decisions? All I can say is, to quote Monty Python—and I love Monty Python— “I’m not dead yet!” and I’ve got the Spamalot pin to prove it.

 

If you’ve got 11 minutes to spare, watch the presentation I gave about my breast cancer story at the 2022 Maui Earth Day Festival:

Reducing Stress

There’s nothing like getting a cancer diagnosis to increase your stress level. At least that was my experience, especially since I was dealing with a splintering marriage at the same time. As the old Greek proverb says, necessity is the mother of invention. I developed a 6-Part Plan to Banish Negative Emotions arising from adversity of any kind.

I had a motto while dealing with both breast cancer and an unfaithful husband: “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.” I tried to find absurd humor in every situation I was faced with. It was crucial to be able to avoid the cancer victim mentality. I did not want to become my illness and have it define who I was. Laughter Therapy was a crucial part of my stress reduction and mood-boosting strategies.

American journalist Norman Cousins declared that, “Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.” He had intimate knowledge of the healing power of laughter. Immobile and in extreme pain from ankylosing spondylitis, he watched Marx Brothers films, Candid Camera and selections from E.B. White’s Subtreasury of American Humor. He quickly discovered that merely ten minutes of induced hearty laughter would produce about two hours of painless sleep.

The final and most difficult part of my 6-part plan was trying to live in the present and cultivate mindfulness, rather than mourning the past or worrying about the future. I discovered a practice used to help British schoolchildren become more mindful that as a committed chocoholic really resonated with me. Check out this Chocolate Mindfulness Exercise and follow along with me. All you need is a wrapped piece of your favorite chocolate!

It can be stressful for caregivers and loved ones to know how to approach someone dealing with breast cancer without saying something that might cause upset or offence. Cancer Etiquette describes some of the Dos and Don’ts to help you navigate the situation if a friend or relative is dealing with the disease.

I have also produced a free mini-eBook that you can download, Ten Tips to Stay Sane After a Cancer Diagnosis.

CJ’s Cancer Memoir

My Wild Ride: How to Thrive After Breast cancer and Infidelity includes plenty of humor and cartoons despite covering a somewhat dark subject. I also embraced my anal BBC investigative journalist persona to reference about 70 books and  more than 100 articles and studies. so  although the book is comedy it’s also meticulously researched and packed with useful information. Take a look at the Table of Contents and the Introduction. if you’d rather be read to than having to read, here’s a 15-minute audio version of the Introduction narrated by no less a person than the actual author,  in other words, me.

But don’t feel obligated to read my stuff when you can read other people’s books instead, even if mine is so much better. I have compiled a Cancer Book List of helpful books on the subject, most of which I have referenced in my memoir.

The BRCA Gene and Mastectomies vs Lumpectomies

I have a mutated BRCA gene. After Angelina Jolie went public about her decision to have prophylactic mastectomies because of her BRCA1 mutation, my surgeon strongly recommended that I follow suit. But as I explain in my blog,  The BRCA Mastectomy Debate: My Biased View, I did not take her advice and chose lumpectomy surgery rather than losing my breasts.

Breast Implant Illness

One reason I refused mastectomies was that I did not want to have to undergo reconstructive surgery with breast implants. My research showed that that they could cause some very unpleasant side-effects. Healing Breast Implant Illness  is a website set up by Nicole Daruda, a pioneer in the field. Her Breast Implant Illness and Healing Facebook group currently has more than 200,000 members. I had fun writing an article skewering a ridiculous new study claiming that neuroticism is a big factor in breast implant illness (BII). Many women are wisely choosing to stay flat after mastectomies to avoid BII.

Bras and Cancer

I have written several articles about the Link Between Bras and Breast Cancer. The book I reference is Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras by Sidney Ross Singer and his wife and breast cancer survivor, Soma Grismaijer. Make sure you get the 2018 second edition as it includes more studies than does the original 1995 book. I talk more about this issue in Busting Myth-Buster Myths: Bras and Cancer According to Google.

Sadly the only research about this issue that Google finds legitimate is the flawed 2014 Hutchinson Study, the only one to find no bra-cancer link. It had no control group of women who did not wear bras, and only included post-menopausal women in whom the deleterious effects of bras were much weaker because of survivor bias. You can read how I Sparred with a ChatGPT Robot about Bras.

What type of clothing should you wear if you go braless? How can you mitigate the negative effects of bras if you need to wear them for sports or the workplace? I answer these questions in my blog, If Breaking Up with Your Bra Is Hard to Do… I look at the potential problems of breast binders and hormone blockers in Are Gender Affirming Practices Carcinogenic?

I also have an article about the problem of Carcinogenic Clothing because of toxic chemicals used in their manufacture. Find out what you can do to avoid exposure.

Boob Exercises, Skin Care and Medical Bracelets

How can we take better care of our breasts? Did you know that jiggling your breasts can improve lymph flow and help drain toxins out of them? Read this blog about Breast Bouncing to find out more.

Looking after your skin, especially during cancer treatment is also important. Here’s the  Cancer Skincare that worked amazingly well for me, so much so that my skin was better during cancer therapy than it had been before. thus I am continuing to use these products.

I have some allergies to pharmaceutical drugs and had made sure that these were on all my various physicians’ medical records for me. My oldest son, who is a doctor, insisted that was not good enough: “If you’re in a car accident and you’ve passed out, the only thing paramedics would have access to immediately is a medical alert bracelet. You should get one made right away.”

I took his advice, but most of the ones I saw online were somewhat ugly. I settled on the rose gold Lynx Shine by American Medical ID.® It was one of the most attractive models I found, so much so, that I wondered if the medical alert emblem might be a little too discreetly placed to be noticeable to paramedics, but I have to admit that my vanity won out over practicality.

Chemo Hair Loss

Losing all your hair is a big deal even though it’s temporary. My breast cancer memoir includes two chapters about all this, “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow,” and “The Wacky World of Wigs.” This is in addition to a separate chapter about chemo. I’ve also written some of blogs about it, including Ugly Lady Bares All at Halloween and How Cancer Gave Me Awesome Armpits.

Planning for Death and Dying

The final chapter of my comic self-help memoir, My Wild Ride: How to Thrive After Breast Cancer and Infidelity, is entitled “Resting in Peace.” At a presentation I gave to the Bitterroot Book Club in Western Montana on June 6, 2023, I explained exactly why this chapter resonated with so many people. The forms I mention in the four-minute video clip below from that presentation are the Five Wishes form from www.fivewishes.org and the Caregivers and Consent Form from www.ourpatientrights.com. There are a number of different forms you can use for an advance healthcare directive or living will, as well as various options as to how to fill them out and varying rules about a form’s legal validity in different locations, so it’s important to research what documents are right for your own particular circumstances.

PLEASE NOTE: C. J. Grace is not a doctor and thus would never presume to tell anyone else how they should deal with their cancer. The information on this webpage is not intended in any way to be a substitute for medical, psychological or emotional counseling with a licensed physician or health care provider. Use these resources at your own discretion and at your own risk.