Henrietta Hay's Column

"BREAST." "CANCER." When I was a kid these two words were never spoken aloud, at least in front of impressionable children. I suppose I grew up not knowing that either one existed. I think it was pictures of naked natives in the National Geographic that finally tipped me off.

One great sign of progress in the late 20th century is that cancer is not a shameful secret any more. It is a horrible disease, but we have opened it up to the light of publicity and public discussion. With millions being spent on research and early detection, there is now hope. Even so, we don't find the two words uttered together very often. One appears in Playboy and the other in medical journals.

Recently local breast cancer survivors met for luncheon with some 300 of their friends and supporters. A friend invited me to go with her, and I accepted with some hesitation. I have not had cancer, and I didn't really want to think about it. But I gritted my teeth and went. As we entered, a woman was distributing fuchsia and pink ribbons. "Are you a survivor?" she asked me. Well, yes, but not from this. My ribbon was pink.

What I found was an event that was not depressing, but that was moving and inspiring and upbeat and, yes, even funny. It was a celebration of life. The pain is still there, but there is hope and confidence and faith in the future.

Cathy Masamitsu, a young and beautiful TV producer from California, who is a survivor, spoke on "Breast Cancer? Let me check my schedule." Modern women are much to busy to have cancer. We have homes and jobs and we simply don't have time. But, she said, "We have no choice. It's been put on the agenda and all we can do is find a way to fit it in."

The walls of the ballroom were covered by big banners with the words, The Many Faces of Breast Cancer. They contained hundreds of photographs of women who have been stricken with breast cancer. My friend's picture was there. So was her mother's. My friend is a survivor. Her mother was not.

Cathy Masamitsu asked the survivors to stand. They stood slowly, women of all ages and all social and economic backgrounds, women who had fought the battle and won it and were saying to all of us, "See - we did it; so can you if you have to." I felt as though the rest of us should stand and cheer.

Survivors cope with breast cancer in many ways. One way is with humor. One of the most famous survivors is Erma Bombeck who probably cracked a joke to her surgeon when she awoke from anesthesia with only one breast.

She recently told what I think is the best story of them all. A woman who had not gotten her prosthesis was flying to see her daughter. She stuffed her bra with cotton, but it stood up, so she decided to weight it down with several silver dollars. The metal detector at the airport went crazy and she had to be led away and searched to prove her bizarre story. I suspect the airport officials had to be led away somewhere too, after that one.

The diagnosis of breast cancer is not an automatic death sentence in 1994. Women are checking their schedules, fitting it all in somehow, and going right along with their busy lives. Erma Bombeck is still writing some of the funniest stuff in the newspapers. Linda Ellerbee lost both breasts and four days later, with her chest bound and bandaged, taped a TV special called A Conversation with Magic (Johnson), discussing HIV. She says that "Maybe I'm such a champion survivor because the alternative doesn't appeal to me."

I know a woman who was a marathon runner before a double mastectomy. She is still a marathon runner. Running was normal before the surgery and she chose to return to normalcy afterward.

I know another woman, a survivor, who has run nearly every rapid on the Colorado River and climbs everything she can find that goes straight up.

By their attitude and their actions they are saying to other women, "Hey, cancer is not a death sentence. Don't be afraid. Let's check our schedules."

Bombeck gets the last word. "If life gives you lemons, stuff 'em in your bra."