A Latina Cancer Survivor’s Story: ‘I Smile’

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Editor’s Note: To recognize National Cancer Survivor’s Day on June 2, 2013, SaludToday is telling the stories of Latino survivors through their own words.

By Meg Reyes

I smiled today. I find I’m able to smile more often as time goes by.

What is there to smile about? I was diagnosed with cancer and could have died, but yet I smile. I went bald, but yet I smile. I almost let my coworkers paint a basketball on my head during the Spurs playoffs, and I smile. I watched my hair grow back in its true color, including the gray, and I smile. I think of my family, friends, and co-workers who did not let one day go by without a hug, an e-mail, or a “How are you?” and I smile. I talked to an old friend who didn’t know I had cancer; when she tells me how good I look, I smile. I love my husband and he loves me, and I smile.

I was told I had breast cancer, and I cried. I told my husband, family, friends, and coworkers, and I cried. I had to tell my mother that her youngest child now had the same condition her mother died from, and I cried. I’d look at myself in the mirror with no hair and a scar on my breast, and I cried. I lost my dad to lung cancer a month after I finished my treatments, and I cried. I run the San Antonio Race for the Cure and see the pink shirts and the tribute wall, and I cry. I hear statistics that some Hispanic women don’t get mammograms because they can’t afford it or are scared, and I cry.

I remember lying on the radiation table after my final treatment and being told, “You are done!” and I cried. I remember calling my husband and family and saying, “I am done!” and I smiled.

Prior to my diagnosis, I conducted self exams probably every three months. Now I do them every two weeks on payday. That’s a good reminder. Exams are very important and should not be reserved only for your yearly doctor’s visit.

I am a wife, mother, sister, daughter, and friend, but most of all I am a survivor. I’m healthy, I have a job, I have a house, I’m alive…and I smile.

This story is taken from Nuestras Historias: Mujeres Hispanas Sobreviviendo el Cáncer del Seno, a bilingual booklet that tells of the cancer experience through the eyes of real life Latina survivors. The booklet was produced by Redes En Acción, a Latino cancer research network funded by the National Cancer Institute and led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday.