cancer support

Making My Survivorship Count

Coretta Scott King once said, “The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.“  Now, imagine a community built brick-by-brick by the survivors of trauma; a cancer diagnosis. 

When we look around, we see many familiar support groups and organizations. Even if we’re not personally affected, we understand that these are tiny communities ready to support individuals with similar afflictions. 

Then, there are patients and survivors who are devastated by a cervical cancer diagnosis and, when they emerge from the darkness of life-altering surgeries and brutal treatments, they are hard-pressed to find that beacon that heralds them to the arms of other cervical cancer survivors.

What if there was a community of open arms that also provided you with the voice and the feet with which to make your survivorship count? To make a difference so that others are imbued with knowledge and the inner permission to self-advocate. Fortunately, an organization like that exists in Cervivor! 

Although my staged cancer story began five years ago, my attempts to prevent that cancer began 26 years prior when I was treated for high-grade pre-cancerous cells. Unfortunately, at the time, there wasn’t a lot of information out there about cervical cancer, other than this cancer is related to HPV. I was 46 when I found out that something I’d dealt with as a young woman was back to seriously try to end my life. 

It wasn’t just about letting people know about their Pap tests anymore, it was also about dispelling the stigma that came along with a below-the-belt cancer. As advanced as our society is, we still, in some ways, carry provincial attitudes and morays regarding the female reproductive system. My goal after coming out of treatment and finding a more distinct voice was to educate not only my local community about cervical cancer, but also to break down barriers. These stigmas can lend a hand in the disproportionate amount of needless suffering due to this cancer.

Lorie at Cervivor School Nashville

My advocacy is a calling that I feel obligated to answer. In these last five years, I’ve met with people one-on-one, in groups, and online to facilitate educational forums on HPV, cervical cancer, and preventative testing. I’ve held fundraisers and donated my time to research organizations. I serve as a cancer mentor for the newly diagnosed to help them in their journeys with cancer. These mentees seek guidance from established patients who’ve been through it all. They are matched with mentors who closely align with their needs. During this mentorship, the mentee feels informed, supported, and more at ease with their treatment modality. 

Along with mentorship, I also share my story through multiple social media platforms. I have shared my cancer experience with several cancer centers to provide a patient perspective for the oncology professionals and to provide hope for the oncology patients who see my videos and read my story.

As a Cervivor, my active intention is to broaden the reach of my voice by advocating about the HPV vaccine because, ultimately, we could eradicate HPV-related cancers through vaccination. I love that our Cervivor community aligns with my passion to reach as many people as possible. We do so, not only with compassion and kindness, but also by lending strength. 

I am but one person and I have a story. Together, we are a village and our stories are powerful.

Lorie Wallace is a five-year cervical cancer survivor and recent Cervivor School graduate. She has dedicated her life to cancer advocacy and support by facilitating community education forums on cervical cancer and HPV awareness. Lorie also serves as a cancer patient mentor for the newly diagnosed and for caregivers of cancer patients. She is a fur mom and a wife, who enjoys painting, music, and is a lifetime student of history.

Blank Verses, Short Stories, and Other Musings

Each night, I climb into bed, prop up on my red, corduroy reading pillow that has followed me from college all those decades ago and slowly open a small, bound book. Pen in hand, I take a deep breath and begin a scribbled conversation that has kept me sane since my April diagnosis of synchronous cervical and uterine cancers. That book, this pen, those words are my free therapy. And I am better for them.

The magic of words was made plain to me in childhood. I taught myself to type on Mom’s gunmetal gray, Royal Underwood typewriter, pecking away on two fingers to churn out a neighborhood newsletter. Adolescence brought dreams of growing up to study Creative Writing, joining a writers’ colony in the Vermont woods and becoming the next Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks…you see where this is going? Well, as too often happens, adulthood altered those dreams, and this English Literature major became a government trial lawyer in Massachusetts—still using words to shrewdly sway jurors and to sharply skewer opponents—but I always maintained a growing collection of blank verse, short stories, and other musings that one day could be shared with somebody. Anybody.

Doris’s cancer journal

Perhaps all that explains why one of the first errands I made immediately after my diagnosis was a search for the right journal to house my feelings—all the scary, happy, and unnamed things that would come my way along this journey. This vessel could not be flimsy or cheesy. No, buddy. This word-keeper had to be worthy of the emotions that would leak out onto its pages. Here is where I would explain how this “cancer thang” discombobulated us all. 

I had always proclaimed that I planned to blow out candles at my centennial birthday party. How could the threat of mortality come knocking at my door now, when my married daughter in Mississippi (Lord help us) needed me after giving birth to our first grandchild in March? And my son was 2,000 miles away in the Boston area, having just survived a divorce and a torn Achilles tendon. He had a hard time handling my illness. My husband was trying mightily to cope with his own anxieties about my health and all the myths and stigmas associated with cancer. This was way too much for a cheap, lightweight notebook. Only a special book could cradle those complicated realities.

My chosen, pink pen pal has never failed me. Its sturdy pages have given me space to vent about the things it has been hard to articulate to folks: the chest port that feels reminiscent of alien abduction anecdotes; the tutorial on dilator use that made the nursing assistant blush; the way I could discern the texture of food (even water), yet not its taste; the exhilarating freedom of a shaved head displayed to all the world. And it has let me weep onto its cream-tinted pages, wrinkled testament to the overwhelming sadness that comes with this journey at the oddest times. 

This journal is so much more than frequently illegible cursive words. No, these pages are quite often a battle cry, this warrior’s call to arms against the most unexpected enemy: her own cells. These pages are like an old-timey, gutbucket, blues chart from backwoods juke joint—a full-throated, belly-wail of agony and joy, growled by one who knows the score (literally and figuratively) and ain’t afraid to tell you all about it. And, always, always, that hard-cover book is my hymnal, sketching lines of praise to Him in Whose armor I outfit myself every day. This little unassuming book contains uniquely metered lyrics of love and faith and strength. 

I will write my way out of this Egypt. The inked lines will chart the path to my Red Sea….

A sixth generation Texan from San Antonio, Doris Helene White earned a B.A. from Central State University in Ohio (an historically black institution) and a juris doctorate from Boston University School of Law. Her career in the government sector as a Massachusetts trial attorney reaffirmed her commitment to an equitable legal system. Retired in 2014, Doris returned home, where she indulged a passion for writing, became an amateur advocate for the history of African Americans in these United States and continued active affiliation with San Antonio Black Lawyers Association, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Jack and Jill of America, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and other community organizations. Her husband Steven Soares, daughter Dr. Leigh Soares and son Steven Cooper Soares lead the best “cancer posse” in the galaxy!