Look Good Feel Better - Index

Look Good Feel Better - magazine - Index

Debi Rumley SURREY, B.-C.
When the results came back from her annual
mammogram in 2001, Debi Rumley was shocked. She
had a lump. How could it be? Although she always
had dense breast tissue, she comes from a long
line of healthy women and she never skipped her
mammogram.
But a needle biopsy confi rmed that she had stage two
breast cancer.
“My daughter was at Brownies that night, when I told
my husband about my diagnosis,” recalled Rumley,
who works full-time in sales and marketing. “I told
him that the surgeon said I needed a left breast
mastectomy. We took a chance and had a mastectomy
and reconstruction, without the chemotherapy and
radiation.”
Rumley faced the mastectomy with her trademark
courage: “I had a full gel implant, which is like having a
foreign object on your chest for the fi rst little while. I’m
a pretty strong person, but it really affected me to see
myself in a T-shirt like that.”
She found an admirable and productive way to channel
her energies. She’s an avid fundraiser for breast cancer,
co-chairing the Nite of Hope White Rock, which raised
$72,840 this year.
“Fundraising is my therapy,” said Rumley. “I want women
to know that mammography works and women have to
be their own health care advocates. Let’s pull our heads
out of the sand, even when we’re afraid to know the
truth. You must get an annual mammogram.”
Joanne Derksen WHEATLEY, ONTARIO
Joanne Derksen light-heartedly refers to herself as the
poster girl for chemotherapy. After being diagnosed
with breast cancer in 2006, she endured a mastectomy
and TRAM fl ap reconstruction, breezing through eight
rounds of chemotherapy with little discomfort. Derksen
continued to work full-time and manage her eight-yearold
son’s hockey team.
“Getting chemotherapy was like being pregnant, with
food cravings for things like pasta and iced tea,” recalled
Derksen, a full-time youth care worker for the Essex
County School Board. “But the radiation was another
matter. I had a horrible reaction. By the fi fth of my
sixteen shots of radiation, my skin was starting to burn.
And I was exhausted.”
Yet, Derksen soldiered on. She had a house to run. Her
father-in-law had died of lung cancer three months
earlier and her husband had just lost his job. She
decided that cancer wasn’t going to win.
“I’ll never forget telling my son about my diagnosis,”
said Derksen, whose breast cancer was stage three,
multi-focal, triple negative, with positive lymph nodes.
“Because his grandfather passed away, he knew that
people can die from cancer. So, I told him that I had
the best kind of cancer to beat. Then, I had to beat it.”
Mission accomplished. Today, Joanne is a tireless
educator, promoting breast self-examinations and
regular trips to the doctor.
“Women can’t get lulled into a false sense of security,”
she warned. “Get checked!”