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DANCE WITH THE DEVIL
AUGUST 14, 1997TRANSCRIPT |
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Essayist Anne Taylor Fleming discusses the difficulties women experience when dealing with breast cancer.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And now, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming considers the message of a new book about breast cancer.
ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: We women know the odds. We carry them with us at all times--one in eight--one in eight--one in eight--if not you, your sister or your aunt or your best friend will get breast cancer. It is the Sword of Damocles hanging over our sex, wherever we are, whatever we're doing, smiling, laughing, eating, drinking, lifting weights, litigating. It hovers over us, threatening to swoop down and carry away our breasts, our bodies, our mothers, our sisters.
We hold our breaths from mammogram to mammogram--our own and those of women we love. We go together, in pairs, waiting for the results--the suspicious shadow on the film--the lump under the fingers. We're on permanent alert. We read everything about breast cancer with a kind of half-eye, wanting to know, not wanting to know. There are reports daily now from the battlefront. Exercise is good; caffeine is bad. Soy is good; alcohol is bad.
They found a couple of breast cancer genes, but it'll be years till they can fix them, or compensate for them if they can't be fixed. There is good news; there is no news. Women between 40 and 50 should have mammograms. No, they needn't bother. That was one of the latest go-arounds fought at the highest levels. An advisory panel at the National Cancer Institutes originally saying no to the mammograms, the American Cancer Society saying yes.
It's an emotional whiplash, all of us trying to figure out our odds, figuring out how to avert the sword. Now comes a compelling new book by Los Angeles writer Karen Stabiner, "To Dance with the Devil." Stabiner tells the story of a handful of breast cancer patients who came through the doors here at UCLA Medical Center with their hopes, fears, and families. It reads like a medical mystery novel.
DOCTOR: This is the worst part, okay? Actually, it will be prettier after I get this on.
ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: The checkered but appealing heroine of the plot is one Dr. Susan Love, a high profile surgeon brought in to head the University's comprehensive breast center. A feisty staple on the talk show circuit and before Congress, Love, with a handful of other women and men, helped move breast cancer to the forefront of the national agenda: the pink ribbon as visible now as the red AIDS ribbon.
But the disease, as Stabiner eloquently documents, remains elusive, wily, destructive, and disfiguring. A hundred and eighty-three thousand will get breast cancer this year and forty-four thousand of us will die of it--one American woman every twelve minutes. Yes, many more of us will die of heart disease. But that doesn't seem to penetrate. It's breast cancer that haunts us. Why? Look around. Even the morning newspapers are full of underwear ads, the news of the day punctuated by pretty young women in Wonder Bras.
As breast cancer moved to the forefront in the past couple of years, breasts, themselves, made a big comeback, a reassuring maternal counterpoint perhaps to the image of the strong, striving modern woman. From Anna Nicole Smith to Claudia Schieffer cleavage was suddenly the big thing. Now you see it, now you don't. No, we can't look away anymore. None of us can.
For better or worse, with tears or rage, they don't automatically do the old slash-it-all-off surgery anymore, so there has been progress, but not nearly enough. That's the cold-eyed but optimistic message of Stabiner's book. Meanwhile, women shouldn't panic. That's the other message.
CINDY: My name is Cindy, and I was diagnosed in May of ‘93.
ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: Breast cancer is here. It's with us. It can be managed in many cases. We will manage together, holding each other, laughing harder, pushing for the next breakthrough, keeping the sword at bay.
WOMAN: So she said, "Oh, but it looks like the other one." I said, "Yes, it looks like the other one."
ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: I'm Anne Taylor Fleming.
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