National Cancer Survivors Day Through A Survivor's Eyes
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Health and Wellness

National Cancer Survivors Day Through A Survivor's Eyes

Celebrating National Cancer Survivors Day the Patrick Dempsey Center way.

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National Cancer Survivors Day Through A Survivor's Eyes


Every year the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer, Hope, and Healing in Lewiston, Maine hosts their annual Cancer Survivor Day event. The evening begins with socializing and food, followed by introductions by staff and oncologists, welcoming everyone to the Center. This year's theme was "The Road Ahead, Together." As the evening moved forward, guest could choose a couple of workshops they would like to attend. This year there were art, cooking, yoga, and reiki. In addition, guests could have their picture taken. Finally, at the end of the evening, they held a raffle.

Upon arriving at the center guests could write on small footprints or bikes, a message about what people or things helped them on their journey, then they glued it on the "road". I wrote down my mantra, "It's All Worth It." This simple statement helped me get through my treatments and surgeries, and, in the end, when they finally told me I was in remission, it truly was all worth it.


Guests got to hear two nice speeches from Dr. Daniel Rausch, an Oncologist from Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine. His wife was actually my chemotherapy nurse, who was absolutely amazing, so I was glad I finally got to meet him. The other speaker was Dr. Mirela Andrei, an Oncologist from St. Mary's Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine.

The first workshop I chose to go to was the expressive art, "The Road to Expression- Cultivating an Art Practice for Healing." We talked about how it can be hard to heal emotionally after cancer. The treatment impacts not just your body, but your mind, spirit, and sense of self as well. There's so much to learn and understand and it can be hard to process. Most of the time, people just push it to the back of their minds to deal with later, a good temporary solution, but when something triggers those memories it becomes hard to confront again. Then there are all the treatment side effects, once again both physically and emotionally. For example, I recently had my eyes re-examined to get a new pair of glasses, I had to go back to have them dilated so they could get a closer look to make sure everything was fine because of the treatments I had. When I was told that, I went home thinking to myself, is there any part of me I don't have to worry about? The last part of our introduction was about confronting the 4 universal fears: being alone, death, or losing your freedom, and loss of meaning. I think a lot of people don't understand exactly how much goes on during cancer treatment.

The woman who ran the group, Stephanie Mcleod-Estevez, taught us how process/expressive art can help us heal from the emotional side of cancer. When you begin to draw or create something in any way, you access the experience and make it more tangible and visible. No matter how abstract it may end up, you get out what you can't seem to verbalize. You're taking all those pieces from your experience and putting them together. I'm not exactly good at capturing my feelings, but feel I somehow created something that seemed to convey the message, even if I am not entirely sure what it all means. My drawing consisted of a sunset setting by water, something calm and beautiful. On one side, there's a cloud with rain and lightning. On the other side is a bright sun with birds flying. Yes, apparently this picture has 2 suns. Then in the middle is a mix of light and dark colors, the collision of both sides I suppose. The other drawing I created is a series of lines that reflect the scars that now cover parts of my chest and neck. Below these lines, I drew a tornado made of questions and thoughts running through it. I added a couple of colored lines to represent some of the feelings. This artwork is something to help me understand a bit more about what I went through.

The 2nd workshop I chose was the cooking class, "The Street Cafe." It was run by Judy Donnelly, Stephanie Buswell, and Linda Merchant. They talked a lot about healthy eating and simple treats you can make yourself. Chemotherapy is poison being injected into your body, so eating something fresh and healthy can make you feel better. Some people lose weight during treatment, and others gained. I, unfortunately, gained some weight as I was unable to do almost anything for a year, so finding easy and cheap healthy options is a plus for me and gets me feeling good and keeps my body healthy. They made us a smoothie made of frozen watermelon, strawberries, and fresh mint that they blended together. Rather refreshing. They made two types of salads, one with spinach, beets, avocado, almonds, and goat cheese. The other was quinoa with some corn, black beans, celery, and some herbs and spices. The last thing they made was a chocolate peanut butter dip, just made with yogurt, natural peanut butter, and cocoa powder. Everything was really good and it was fun to learn about healthy things to eat and get some recipes.

My mom, sister, and I went and had our picture taken by Ashley Dyer before going to "Share Your Story", an option being offered that I chose to sign up for. Sharing your story was a chance to be interviewed and recorded as you told your personal story, as well as your personal experiences with cancer. I actually did rather well, as I tend to be incredibly awkward.

You only chose 2 out of the 4 workshops, so I didn't get to attend "The Path to Gentle Stretches," the yoga class, or "Reiki on the Boulevard," the Reiki class. However, I'm sure they were just as nice and those who did attend probably learned a lot as well. I'm just not really a yoga person and in Reiki, they touch you and I don't like being touched, so I knew that one wasn't right for me.

Although I didn't win anything, the raffle was still nice and they gave away some really nice quilts to people and my mom's co-worker actually got the door prize which was pretty cool. Overall, it was a really fun night at a wonderful place with wonderful people that does so many incredible things. You even got half off your Dempsey Challenge registration fee if you signed up that night which was awesome.

So here's to the Dempsey Center and all the incredible things they do for those affected by cancer, and here's to the cancer survivors of the night. Here's to the road ahead, together.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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