Elaine survived a stage one breast cancer diagnosis. She has been a volunteer with the Johns Hopkins Breast Center for eleven years. She says the disease left her with a gift–being part of the Johns Hopkins family as a volunteer. Elaine now raises funds for research and helps other women–including the underprivileged–face the challenges of their disease. ”I would not be involved with any of this if I had not had breast cancer. So that’s the gift it gave me. And for that, I’m very thankful.”

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Transcript

My name is Elaine. I’m 60, and my diagnosis was stage 1 breast cancer. I’ve been a volunteer with the Johns Hopkins Breast Center for 11 years. I decided to join the Breast Center Volunteer Survivors Team because when I was going through treatment, I was helped a great deal by women that were part of the team that had gone through treatments themselves.

For me, the women I’ve met through the survivor team, the friendships, the friends we’ve lost, I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Rosemary Carlson was a dear friend that I met about five years ago. When she was diagnosed, she was stage four. She would always say, I’m not dying from cancer, I’m living with it.

And her passing, although it was very difficult in February, it was just a blessing having known her. The Avon walk is two days of some very brave, mostly women. The cheerleaders are really crucial to keeping the spirits up of the walkers. Because walking 29 miles, I believe it is, two days, it’s a daunting task.

And we hear from the walkers that are the non Hopkins walkers. They say, they heard the pink ladies from Hopkins. You guys are great. We aim to be at every cheering stop and just to encourage them. We have a megaphone and when Rosemary was living, we would write down cheers and we would do cheers together.

You didn’t mind spending 10 hours out there cheering these folks along because they were raising money. That’s going to help with the research that hopefully will help to end breast cancer one day. Bernie Siegel, I read several of his books, and I also heard him speak. And a number of his books help patients that have chronic illnesses.

And he, he spoke one time to a group of physicians and said, I have a pathology report, and if anyone can tell me within a month when this patient died, I’ll give you my salary for a year. But if you can’t, you have to give me your salary for a year. And one of the physicians said, well, we can’t tell you that.

And he said, then stop telling patients how long they have to live, because you don’t know that. He would ask his patients, what gift has your disease given you? And for me, it is being part of the Johns Hopkins family, a volunteer, and helping other women face the challenges and help to raise funds for people that are underprivileged, that cannot afford treatment, that don’t have insurance for research.

The programs that Johns Hopkins does, there are survivor programs for newly diagnosed, for women with stage four. I would not be involved with any of this if I had not had breast cancer. So that’s a gift it gave me, and for that I’m very thankful.