Gaye's biggest fear was to look like her bald father but her daughter saw a resemblance with Ghandi.

Transcript

I went through chemo, like I said it made my feet numb. After the second treatment I couldn’t walk very well for a while. My feet are still numb, it’s about 5 years, but my balance is much better. I have to make sure that I wear flat shoes, but I’m good. I’ve lost some of my memory and I’m not sure if that’s from the chemo or radiation. I had 25 radiation treatments and I am fine. I lost my hair. My biggest fear was that my dad was bald and I was afraid that I would wake up one night and go in the bathroom and think it was my dad staring back at me, but I didn’t look too bad. My daughter was here and one day we were sitting at the table, I threw a towel or something over my shoulder, she said “Oh my God, you look like Ghandi.” And so I got her to take a picture of me, I sent it to my friends by e-mail saying “Ghandi wants to speak” and I told them a little thing and I put this picture on there. I, you know, I wore a couple wigs, I became a brunette for a while and that was something different. My husband wasn’t sure if he liked that, he had said “Don’t wear that when you’re with me.” We went out one night for supper with friends and the waitress was a friend of one of my daughters. She was talking to (name husband) but she never said anything to me, and I thought, well, she didn’t recognize who you were. And I said who I was and she said “Oh I didn’t recognize you, I thought (name husband) was with someone else” and my husband said see I told you. So that was quite funny I thought.

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More content

• Alternative and complementary therapies – Gaye
  To improve her taste sensation, Gaye would like to use marijuana and is trying to find a doctor willing to prescribe it.
• Chemotherapy – Gaye
  Gaye's biggest fear was to look like her bald father but her daughter saw a resemblance with Ghandi.
• Surgery – Gaye
  Even though the surgeon advised Gaye to have a double mastectomy, Gaye felt a single was enough.
• Finding and sharing information – Gaye
  Gaye felt that people were focused on feeling sorry for themselves in the support group she visited.
• Follow-up care and the risk of recurrence – Gaye
  Gaye was also at higher risk of a recurrence. She asked her doctor to stop mentioning this at every visit.
• Troubling long-term effects of treatment – Gaye
  Gaye discovered that smoking marijuana temporarily restored her sense of taste and she described her excitement at experiencing flavours again for the first time.
• Treatment for lymphedema – Gaye
  Initially Gaye's swelling was not recognized as lymphedema.