Beating back cancer: Five women’s stories

BY C.S. GILBERT

NEWS WRITER

At a time in which the incidence of cancer seems to be increasing due to mysterious environmental and/or genetic factors, to battle against the disease and come out alive has a unique resonance today. A group of women from Unity of the Keys has boldly faced this life or death challenge and have not only lived to tell about it, but are offering their stories of success to the community in an informal forum: The many paths to managing breast cancer.

These stories will be told by five very strong women on Sunday, April 27, at 1 p.m. at Unity. The forum is “being offered as a free community education program with love offerings accepted on behalf Relay for Life,” said Donna Shields, with Catherine Duncan, coordinator of the event. Joining them will be Katharine Doughty, Allison Moyer and Catherine Vogel. All of them “have recently battled breast cancer, each taking a different route to health and wellness. Learn how conventional and other treatment modalities, such as nutrition, acupuncture, energy medicine and yoga, can be successfully integrated into a treatment plan,” said Shields.

Other than having battled breast cancer and belonging to Unity, the women are quite different. Catherine Duncan is a five-time cancer survivor, Shields said, “and I speak from a personal viewpoint as well as being a registered dietitian nutritionist. We have all taken a different path, with some similarities but also differences. There is no one perfect answer and that’s the hard part, figuring out the best path for yourself and your particular cancer characteristics.”

The forum is an expansion of their participation in the annual Relay for Life. “Instead of simply raising money, we thought it was more important to raise awareness by educating women on the many different paths they can take. We have all become our own advocates and want to share the lessons we’ve learned and the research we’ve done. I had started organizing this type of forum last fall and was just too busy at the beginning of my treatment to deal with it. Now that I’m on the back end of it — surgeries done — I thought this was a good time to resurrect the idea,” she said.

Treatment is not, however, an either-or choice between traditional and nontraditional modes. “This is a misconception people have that you either have to do alternative or conventional. We think there’s room for both and doing so improves quality of life during treatment and long term outcomes,” Shields explained. “Conventional treatment, which is basically surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, focuses on fixing the problem now and doesn’t address what might have been the root cause. It also doesn’t address hands-on lifestyle changes that can help prevent reoccurrences.

“Once the treatments are done, the work isn’t over. Women need to understand that their diet plays an incredibly important role, as well as keeping active, using meditation and other stress reducers, acupuncture, reiki and other energy modalities. As a nutrition professional, I’d caution against following a cancer fad you read about in a magazine. While cancer has a common threat, the biology of each cancer for each patient can vary. Thus the treatments need to be tailored to one’s individual bloodwork. This isn’t a time for self medication,” she said.

There is, however, a tremendous amount of information out there. How does one begin to sort it all out? “Ah, yes,” agreed Shields. “The Internet is a curse and a blessing. It’s a great way to educate yourself but many people can’t discriminate between valid sources and those that are not. Average consumers don’t know how to interpret study results and it can be very confusing. We hope to give people some concrete advice on where to go for legitimate information and the types of practitioners they should be engaging.”

Unity of the Keys is located at 1011 Virginia St. in Old Town.

 

 

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