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Some people react as if the glass is half empty,
others as if it is half full. I am interested in our responses to
varied situations and how we cope. Cancer has given me a gift to
be able to relate to those with a severe crisis in their lives.
Each crisis has a loss and a gain. I would like to think that my
experience with cancer has given me compassion about human frailty.
I see how little we are in control. What we need most is faith.
What becomes clear to me is that the causes are related to the cures.
They are two sides of the same coin. If radiation can cause cancer,
radiation can also cure it. Chemicals in the environment can cause
the disease; chemotherapy can cure. There is a paradox at work here.
Hollis Sigler
Quotes from the art work of Hollis Sigler:
There is freedom in having cancer. My worst fear has come true.
There is nothing
left to lose when one has lost her health. There is only gain. I
am free to follow my heart’s desire.
Forty-two thousand women will die from breast cancer in one year,
about the same number of people who have in the first ten years
of the AIDS epidemic. Cancer is the leading cause of death in women
ages 35 to 54. Cancer has become an acceptable epidemic. As someone
who has metastatic breast cancer, that is unacceptable to me.
"Cancer Journals" by Audre Lourde
Lorde began writing her journal entries
six months after her radical mastectomy; they illustrate her process
of integrating the crisis into her life, retelling her experience
from detection to follow-up therapies. Lorde's most passionate battle
was waged against silence. "This is it, Audre," Lorde
wrote. "You're on your own." Where was the model? she
asked, seeking another voice to speak to her experience.
May these words serve as encouragement for other women to speak
out and act out of our experiences with cancer and with other threats
of death, for silence has never brought us anything of worth . .
. May these words underline the possibilities of self-healing.
Audre Lorde
To order The Cancer Journals from Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1879960265/o/qid=994724114/
sr=2-1/107-5049253-0562950
Arts & Healing Network
The Arts and Healing Network's web site is an international resource
for anyone interested in the healing potential of art.
www.artheals.org
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