Donna described herself as having a stoic personality, never complaining and always looking after herself. She explains how being more open about her needs led to a deepening of important relationships in her life.
Transcript
It’s been good to come to work not just for the work, it’s a social support for me as well. It’s been very supportive here. Some of the people I work with are very dear to my heart so I think what happened for me is my heart cracked wide open with this. It was sort of an opportunity to either open up or to shut down. That’s one of the gifts I think of the breast cancer. I tend to have a stoic personality, I’ve been told. And there was just no room for that. There was no room for that at all. There was no room for stoism with this. At times it was helpful to be able to just sort of buck up and deal with what I was going through but there was lots of opportunity to be really open-hearted and to talk about what was going on, for me and to be emotional. And it also helped that other people had the same opportunity.
I’m always in charge, I’m always in control. If there’s a crisis I kind of deal with it. And I just see, I had to back off from all of that because I couldn’t deal with it and then and life goes on. So a number of things came up while I was sick and I just couldn’t deal with them somebody else had to do it. It was sort of like giving up the reins.
So there was a lot of deepening of relationships. I realized just how supportive my network is and I appreciated it. Part of it was having to learn to receive as well so it was a challenge. I didn’t want to feel I was obligated and then to realize it didn’t create obligation it was it’s a two-way street. You can’t, I’m used to being the one who gives emotional support and gives whatever a person needs, so realizing that somebody’s got to be willing to receive or else you can’t give. So it was just seeing the other side of that.
More from: Donna
More content
- Alternative and complementary therapies – Donna (2)Donna initially wanted to use only natural and alternative treatments; her family convinced her to include the medical treatments.
- Alternative and complementary therapies – DonnaDonna's health care team said 'no' to all complementary treatments
- Endocrine (hormone) therapy – DonnaJoint and muscle pain can have multiple causes and it is difficult for Donna to connect with her health professionals to discuss the side-effects.
- Radiation therapy – DonnaDonna experimented with various homemade skin products and other forms of alternative therapies.
- Chemotherapy – DonnaDonna found some situations so absurd that she learned to just have a good belly laugh about them.
- Surgery -DonnaDonna describes how it was for her to undergo the sentinel node biopsy.
- How it affects family and friends – DonnaDonna describes how the illness has led to deeper personal relationships and changed her appreciation of friendships.
- Positive effects on self – DonnaDonna described herself as having a stoic personality, never complaining and always looking after herself. She explains how being more open about her needs led to a deepening of important relationships in her life.
- Coping strategies – DonnaDonna shared a story about an incident that could have been embarrassing but she chose to see as funny.
- Understanding the diagnosis – DonnaDonna had a healthy lifestyle but realized that because the causes of breast cancer are unknown, she wasn't different from anybody else.