Olivia Newton-John, Jaclyn Smith on surviving breast cancer
Actress Jaclyn Smith will never forget the day she found out she had breast cancer.
And she’ll never forget the lesson she learned in those very first moments of being a cancer patient.
As her doctor gave her the diagnosis, “I was in a state of panic,” she says. “It was kind of surreal, and you don’t really hear what they’re saying.”
The lesson she learned that day: “Don’t go it alone,” she says. Her husband, Brad Allen, who was with her at the doctor’s office, was better able to focus and ask questions about the best treatment options.
Smith says she remembers she did manage to ask one question: “I said, ‘Am I going to be here for my children?’ He said, ‘98 percent, yes.’ ”
Five years later, Smith is indeed here for her children. She’s one of the 2.4 million women in the United States who’ve survived breast cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. According to a report out this week from the American Cancer Society, the death rate from breast cancer went down 2.2 percent per year from 1990 to 2004.
This means more life for these women, and more wisdom from them about how to survive a cancer diagnosis. (Smith, for example, travels the country talking to women about breast cancer as a paid spokeswoman for drug company Eli Lilly). Here, from Smith, singer Olivia Newton-John, and gynecological oncologist Dr. Carolyn Runowicz, herself a breast cancer survivor, is advice that can come only from having been there.
Want more inspiration? Check out In memory of Janie
breast cancer, jaclyn smith, Olivia Newton-John
breast cancer, jaclyn smith, Olivia Newton-John
October 20th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
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