Cancer survivor: What we lack in distance, we make up for in height
Published: September 15, 2005
Lopping off a body part to cure a disease still seems a bit odd, but someday in the not-too-distant future, an audience will look back at a speaker in disbelief if she were to say that breast cancer once killed people, Linda Ellerbee said.
“I lost both of my breasts and all my hair. At least my hair grew back,” joked Ellerbee, speaking to several hundred people gathered Wednesday evening for Marshfield Clinic’s 18th annual Lawton Lecture at the Marshfield High School auditorium.
To her resume - which includes journalist, author, television producer, mother and grandmother - Ellerbee adds cancer survivor.
Despite the turmoil cancer caused, surviving it has made her life richer and made her a better person, Ellerbee said.
However, she said having a great attitude means nothing. Women who had great attitudes facing breast cancer are still losing their lives to the disease.
“We don’t need better attitudes,” Ellerbee said, raising her voice and sharply enunciating every word as the audience began to applaud. “We need a cure, not a better attitude.”
More breast cancer research has advanced because women have finally voiced that yes, they have breast cancer, rather than simply whispering about a “female problem,” Ellerbee said.
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Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the TableIn February 1992, Ellerbee found a lump in her breast while showering. It hurt, and both she and her doctor bought into the myth that if a lump hurt, it couldn’t be cancerous.
Then came “The Day of the Bad Mammogram,” Ellerbee said as if she were a movie announcer.
Once she was diagnosed, the attitudes of people around her began to change, and Ellerbee said they would attempt to comfort her in the most amusing ways, even though they meant well.
She heard, “You’ll be just fine. I know it.” Ellerbee asked that if she didn’t know it and her doctor didn’t know it, how could someone else?
She heard, “Cancer. Are you sure?”
“No, I made it up,” Ellerbee said, to laughter from the audience.
Treatments caused hair loss, nausea and exhaustion, and she had both breasts removed, but Ellerbee said she found strength through women who had survived cancer, and they also gave her the permission to laugh.
At one point, she was trying to regain her strength by tossing a ball to an energetic golden retriever, which eventually grew tired, and dropped the ball at her feet. She bent to pick it up, and lost one of the prosthetics that had previously rested against her chest.
The dog picked it up and ran away down the streets of Manhattan.
“I ran after it saying, ‘Give me my breast!’” she said. “I laughed until I cried - because, you’re going to cry.”
Everybody dies, and everybody knows that everybody dies, but people continue to have the courage to love others, knowing that they will be gone someday, Ellerbee said.
“What we lack in distance, we make up for in height,” she said.
After Ellerbee concluded, Diane Hughes of Stratford joined in the resounding applause and prepared to have Ellerbee’s most recent book, “Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table,” signed by the author.
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