Every day is precious
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Alumni were privileged to share a discussion about breast cancer with Lauren Segal and Professor Vinay Sharma at the Wits Club on 15 March 2018.
How does anyone cope with four cancer diagnoses – and how does it change your life? The greatest lesson that Lauren Segal took away from her journey through the “kingdom of the sick”, as she calls it, was how to ask for help in a difficult time.
“Care and kindness is part of wellness. I had an instinct that I needed help.” She sought various complementary forms of care along with surgery and chemotherapy, an approach which she said is becoming more widely accepted as beneficial. “Science is catching up with this.”
Wits alumna Lauren (BEd 1988; BA Hons 1990) is the author of five books, including Cancer: A Love Story (MF Books 2017), her account of this journey. She trained as an historian and film maker at Wits and is the managing partner of Trace, a team of research, exhibition and design professionals. She has written about South Africa’s Constitution and about the history of Soweto, and helped design Johannesburg’s Holocaust and Genocide Centre.
Great events and great lives have been the focus of her career. But it is the value of an ordinary day and her own family and friends that have become so important to Lauren after her experience with cancer.
“This experience has given me something, rather than taken something away,” she said to Wits alumni who joined her at the networking event. “There is so much to learn from difficulty.
“Do something you want to do every day,” she urged. “Value your time.”
Professor Sharma, Head of Radiation Oncology at Wits, spoke about the importance of patients having confidence in their doctors. This can be a challenge in hospital settings where the medical staff have so little time to discuss each patient’s concerns and choices or to see each person as a whole. Often, too, patients are left on their own in hospital because families and friends can’t be with them all the time, and this is not ideal.
He asked Lauren how she had felt and reacted when she received her cancer diagnoses, and how she helped her children to deal with what was happening.
She received her first diagnosis of melanoma at the age of 23 and a breast cancer diagnosis at 45. The third diagnosis was the most shocking, she said, because she thought she had finished dealing with cancer. It was difficult to have to make a lot of medical decisions and to enter a world in which “you don’t know the rules”.
Writing was a way to gain some degree of control of her life and to protect her family from the difficult feelings she was experiencing. Reading was also a help: other people’s cancer stories, and in particular Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s ideas about choosing your response to your circumstances.
Since sharing her story, she has been surprised by the levels of fear, shame and silence that still surround the subject of cancer. She said that for her, “leaning in” to the thing you fear the most, and having the support of a community, provides strength.
“Care, love, exercise – these don’t cost anything. Education is the challenge. Knowledge is power.”
Prof Sharma shared some research findings about the links between melanoma and breast cancer, the factors that increase the risk of cancer, the tests available and how patients can take care of themselves and maintain a positive outlook.
Dr Maurice Goodman, acting President of Wits Convocation, and Peter Bezuidenhoudt, Wits Development and Fundraising director, thanked the speakers and the alumni who attended for generously sharing their time, knowledge and insight.
- To see photos of the event, click here.
- To receive invitations to Wits alumni networking events, please ensure we have your contact details: alumni@wits.ac.za or +27 11 717 1090