By Carrie Brooks-Joiner, KAB Member
We know what the “C” word means. Given the prevalence of cancer in so many forms, most people have at least a passing familiarity of the disease. Yet, until it demands our attention, cancer tends to stay in the background of our consciousness.
For members of the Knot A Breast Breast Cancer Survivor Dragon Boat team members, we have already faced the big “C”. For some of us, and others who have experienced cancer, it is not the big “C” that dominates our thoughts, but the big “R”; recurrence. My handy dictionary explains recurrence as the “fact of happening again”. Dr. Google goes on to explain that in a cancer context, recurrence is cancer that has recurred (come back or metastasized), usually after a period of time during which cancer could not be detected. Cancer may come back to the same place as the original (primary) tumour or in another place in the body.
I was a cancer innocent. It never occurred to me that I would get breast cancer. There is very little cancer in my family and no breast cancer. I had none of the risk factors. I distinctly recall my mother explaining to me that it is cardiovascular disease that kills the women in my family. Perhaps she thought that somehow this awareness, and her reminders to pay attention to healthy living, would stave off that threat. Maybe it has, but there was cancer lurking behind it.
