Because everyone needs somebody to talk to that really understands

Tasha Westerman, the Chair of Rethink Breast Cancer’s Calgary Committee, reflects on her experiences with breast cancer as a young woman and becoming a new Peer Support Volunteer.

It’s just another Thursday, but not really. Every 3 months I have to go take care of my “other” life. Here I sit, in the Cancer Centre, waiting for blood work. They need to check all of my counts to make sure they are normal - whatever that is anymore. Then I will meet with my oncologist and nurse to go through the list of symptoms I still have – bruising, trouble sleeping, numbness& tingling and oh yes, the hot flashes.  Next will be the injection in my stomach of some kind of drug that shuts down my ovaries for 3 months at a time. My nurse is so sweet that she has never to this day allowed me to look at the needle, because she said that’s not helpful. Then I will get another 3 month supply of the daily drug I need to suppress the rest of the estrogen in my body and then return to my real life. 

The difference in this story from many is that I’m also 37. I’ve had breast cancer twice now. I’ve lost my husband to brain cancer a year or so ago and now I’m raising our son on my own. I don’t say all that for any kind of sympathy - that is really not helpful.  I say it because I’ve always been different. 

From day one when I had just returned to work from maternity leave, with a 14 month old baby boy and a husband whose cancer was in remission, I knew my ride would be different than the typical breast cancer story I had heard. What I needed was to talk to someone about the questions that I had – can I hold my son after surgery? Can I still work while doing chemo? Where is the best place to buy a wig for someone who is 32 and wants to still look normal? But that didn’t exist.

Even today as I look around the lab waiting to get my blood work, I am clearly the youngest person here. But I have never been someone to just sit around and complain, so to the internet I went. Shortly after, I found Rethink Breast Cancer – a charity based in Toronto that was all about awareness and support for younger women. Bingo! After a few calls and meetings, a group of us decided it was time for a change and we were going to make it happen.

This summer we reached a big goal we have had since day one. We officially launched Rethink’s Peer Support for Young Women with Breast Cancer program in Western Canada. We spent a weekend getting trained by psychologist, Dr. Claire Edmonds, and Noni Regan, the program coordinator, to offer one to one peer support, similar to the program that exists in Ontario. There were nine of us, reliving our experiences with the goal of being able to soon help make someone else’s journey a bit easier.

Although I live every day in my real life, that weekend forced me to return to my “other” life and really focus on it. What went well, what didn’t, how could I help someone else through that challenge? The part that I wasn’t expecting was how hard that would be. In my real life I can forget the C word ever was a part of me. When I meet someone new, they don’t know me as a cancer widow or a cancer survivor, I am just an HR professional, an activist for change when needed, a mom, a single girl, whatever I want to be. 

But in this room, we all shared our “other” lives. It’s much easier to gloss over the hard part of cancer with people who haven’t been through it. In this room with other people who have been where you are, they know better. That is exactly the reason why this program is so important to so many young women in similar situations. Because everyone needs somebody to talk to that really understands. 

Many times in my life I have looked at the problems going on in the world and wished that I could help. But then stepped back thinking I am only one person and how could I really make an impact? We all go through hard things in our life, but if we can each walk away from them with the goal of trying to help someone else that will walk in our shoes - imagine how much we can accomplish. 

Tasha Westerman

Chair, Calgary Committee – Rethink Breast Cancer