“Does anyone know how to do a self-breast exam?” wasn’t what most people expected to hear from the young man whose were arms covered in tattoos and was wearing a black T-shirt that had a band’s name scrawled across the front.
This was Skate 4 Cancer, and the man had just finished announcing the winners of the most recent skateboarding competition earlier that day at the Forks skate park in Winnipeg, Manitoba. With the sun beating down hard as a local band set up on stage behind him, he called the teens and young adults to come closer to the stage and listen as he pulled up a younger girl in bright purple tank top, and long, blonde funky hair sticking up in all directions.
She began to demonstrate and explain to the audience the simple steps to checking for breast lumps and abnormalities. Acting sexy? No, trying to save lives.
When Skate 4 Cancer founder Rob Dyer set off on his first skate tour at age 20, he had no idea what his dream would become. Seeing all the important women in his life suffer from cancer, he decided that he wanted to help out, and since skateboarding was what he knew best, he picked up his skateboard and threw on his skate shoes and planned a skate tour to raise funds.
Only a few months before he was to begin his tour, he lost both grandmothers, one to stomach cancer, and the other to brain cancer. He was devastated, but that only brought more motivation. Then, as if he needed more reason to raise money, his mother passed away from a type of brain cancer similar to her mother’s.
Now, as Dyer skates his third tour since the beginning, first crossing New Zealand and then following up with Australia, he hopes to bring his message to the rest of the world. With every push of his board, he hopes that kids of all ages will
hear what he has to say, that while raising funds is fantastic and extremely helpful, he believes that “Knowledge is the Cure” and the best way to prevent cancer is to become educated on the subject, and to lead a healthy lifestyle.
Even if you never plan on going to a Skate 4 Cancer event, the message that it sends applies to all of us. Cancer affects us all, and the more we know about it and how to lessen our chances of this predatory disease growing in our bodies, the more time we’ll have to do the things we love.
A few months after the concert, I had the privilege of sitting down with one of the most inspiring women I have ever come across: Hildy Janzen not only fought –and beat- cancer twice –ovarian the first time, and breast cancer the second - but also lost her husband to prostate cancer in between her own illnesses, and somehow managed to keep her chin up throughout. I asked her a few questions about her experience, and she gladly shared her knowledge.
One of the most important issues that she pressed was to get to know your body and to visit your doctor as soon as you notice anything unusual.
Ignoring abnormalities in your everyday health can prove to be fatal if they are not looked after right away, often decreasing your chances of beating the disease. The longer cancer sits in your body, the more it has the chance to spread.
Performing regular self-examinations and going in for screenings are major factors in detecting cancer early. Though it is most often women that are subject to breast cancer, it’s important that men know how to do a self breast exam as well, not only so they can detect it in their partners, but also in the rare chance that they themselves might have it.
“The way my doctor showed me to do [a breast exam] is to take the flat of your fingers and starting from the top, touch all the way around your breast. Also, don’t forget to feel under the armpit,” Janzen said.
It is important to get to know your breasts and learn how lumpy they are, because some women have naturally lumpy breasts, whereas others don’t, and if you know what type you are, you will be better able to detect anything out of the ordinary, she said. Performing this check often, at least once a month is one way to be sure that you can catch any changes.
Along with keeping up to date with screenings and vaccinations, living a healthy lifestyle contributes greatly in reducing your risks of any kind of cancer. According to the Mayo Clinic website, maintaining a healthy weight and getting regular exercise are among the top ways of lowering your risks. Being physically active for as little as thirty minutes at least three times a week is a good start if you are not normally active. Something as simple as going for a walk after dinner can help tremendously. Don’t be afraid to talk to your doctor or physiotherapist if you’re not sure how to start and need help coming up with a safe exercise plan for yourself.
Regular exercise also helps reduce stress, something that Janzen believes deeply affected the onset of her cancer. But don’t let that be an excuse to stay in a severely stressful situation, she advised. Mull over your situation and ask yourself, “Is this worth getting sick over?”
“The year I got sick, I was the fittest I have ever been,” Janzen told me. “They tell you to eat right and to exercise, which I think helps to an extent, but I believe if the cancer cells are [in your body], then they are there and in my case, not getting out of a stressful work situation when I should have contributed to my decrease in health.”
Battling cancer once isn’t easy on anyone, never mind twice. “The will to live [helped me beat this],” she told me. “I don’t like when people feel sorry for me. Whenever I cried, I did it alone. Around people, I put on a brave face. Singing in the church choir whenever I could. Music is such a powerful healing tool.”
Here’s the most important bit of advice Janzen gives to anyone who is suffering with cancer and going through chemo:
“You know yourself better than anyone. Don’t be afraid to tell the doctors if you can’t handle it anymore. Doctors know statistics, but you know how much you can take. I stopped my chemo at twenty-five out of thirty sessions because it was just too much for me. I’m pretty sure that if I had gone on, the chemo would have killed me.”
“People will always give you advice, which is nice to an extent, but ultimately, you are the one who has to deal with it, so make sure you listen to your body and know when to speak up for yourself.”
The cases of Hildy Janzen and Rob Dyer’s family attest to the importance of getting to know your family’s disease history. Talking to your doctor about your medical background can help you learn to spot when trouble is brewing, hopefully before anything life-threatening occurs.
So the next time you see a “punk skateboarder” rolling down the street and showing off his tricks, use it as a reminder. Remember Rob Dyer’s mission, and the message behind it. None of us is invincible, no matter how old or young; and remember: the cure is knowledge.
- Karis Funk
