A friend of mine writes on sub stack. She used to be an oncology nurse. She’s also an artist so she shared this post from a fellow artist and it so resonated with me.

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Spin

My 100th post discusses a media opportunity.

BETH L. GAINER

FEB 14, 2025

About a month ago, I was approached by someone with extensive media connections. We had a nice conversation about my developing art series: Breast Cancer, Female and Young.

Would I want a coveted chance at media exposure for the series?

For those new to my Substack publication, I am a breast cancer survivor and artist, whose aforementioned series depicts tasteful, nude female figures oil painted on canvas. These figures represent women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer on the younger side. The methodology for how I came to create this series can be found here.

The nudes will hopefully resonate with women who’ve been diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, as well as their loved ones. And I hope that Breast Cancer, Female and Young will educate people about how emotionally and physically devastating breast cancer is.

My contact envisioned “selling” the paintings to the press in the following way: the series would start with sadness, but my painting Unfinished Business (shown later in this essay) should exude joyful positivity as a finale to my series.

Breast cancer all tidied up. And someone trying to control how viewers perceive my art.

I found both rather distasteful.

My art series is deliberately non-linear, offering various depictions of the breast cancer experience in no particular order. I do not envision a beginning and an end because cancer is not tidy. For those like me who have survived cancer thus far, there may be a beginning, but often there is no end.

While we are grateful to be alive, we are never quite the same physically and emotionally after experiencing cancer. Collateral damage from treatment wreaks havoc on our bodies and spirits. And PTSD and other types of psychological damage do not give survivors the honeyed lives that some in the press enjoy showcasing.

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This post continues. I just shared an excerpt. This is a great blog as a matter of fact, and I’m going to read it going forward because it’s real.

On my own blog here over the past 14 years, I have had a similar conversation over the years ever since my own diagnosis and treatment. People want to say oh it’s so great you survived and this and that, and yes it is and it gives you a lot of new appreciation on things in life and it frees you in a lot of ways, but you are forever changed. When I read this, I thought I have to share this on my own breast cancer blog because it’s just so true and so real.

The writer and artist goes on to comment about people with metastatic breast cancer, etc. It’s a fabulous piece of writing IMHO and I’ve now subscribed.

It’s reminds me of when I say during breast cancer awareness month that breast cancer is neither pink nor fluffy.

There’s no other way around it, breast cancer is just a lot.

There is the whole thing of getting through the treatment and the meds and then there’s the whole self body image, which once you have had breast cancer is irrevocably changed. Some women get tattoos, some women get new breasts. I’ve done neither and now I’m 60, and when you look at me straight on, the half of breast I have left on the left side that I said 14 years ago looked like a donut peach is now a shrunken donut peach because it was irradiated. It actually shrinks a little more every year. If you look at that just to look at that fact, it’s fascinating, but still sometimes it gives you pause looking in the mirror.

Sometimes I look and I say to myself look at that now, and I used to have pretty nice breasts. But you’re a long time dead, and I’d rather be alive with crooked lopsided breasts. I also chose not to get a replacement breast, etc. because that plastic surgery just wasn’t for me, although I did post- skin cancer reconstructive surgery on the back of my head. As I discussed on this blog before I decided at the time I could deal with half a breast, but I couldn’t deal with a giant bald patch on the back of my head after skin cancer.

So artist Beth Gainer’s post and her particular painting opening her post resonates with me. I look at that painting and I see myself or a part of myself. Now I still have half a breast on the left, which is more than you see in the painting, but that’s how you feel. And I’m not saying that because it’s good or it’s bad because it’s neither, it just is.

I still remember standing in the mirror almost 14 years ago before my breast cancer surgery, wondering what it would look like and feel like. It helped me come to terms with what was happening to me and my body but living it is a different thing …and I’m not saying it’s bad or horrible every day because it’s not.

And people are so obnoxious in general with middle-aged women that you add breast cancer to it and it really is an interesting study in life. I’m a blogger I have been since forever. As I have written here before I have had experiences where people took photographs related to my breast cancer journey, and used them for their own selfish means.

One of the first times it happened it was this kook of a woman who posted the photo I had posted on this blog almost 14 years ago now, when I was just beginning the journey, I posted a photo of me in a hospital gown standing in a mirror. The photo was posted like a most wanted poster in a post office. Who is this woman she asked? Not because she wanted to meet me because I was a breast cancer survivor. It was because I had somehow outraged her with something I had written. Oh, and she did it during breast cancer awareness month. And she used that particular photo as an attempt to shame or embarrass me. Only I wasn’t shamed or embarrassed, I was outraged that you could take a photo like that out of context and try to use it for your own unrelated bullshit.

Then in the fall of 2024, I had another woman do a similar thing. Oh, and the added bonus of she decided to fat shame me. And to tell me how I was supposed to be. Did I mention this is one of those women who claims to empower and lift up other women? Yup.

Back then I wrote that breast cancer is a club no one asks to join, a sorority you didn’t choose, but it does teach you that you are stronger than you think. And facing your own mortality frees you from all sorts of things, and teaches you much.

I continued that here I am and you don’t have to like me or agree with me. But you don’t get to just come after me continually because I do not share your views.

Sometimes I have to think that having had breast cancer taught me to stand up for myself more. After all, you learn early on you have to be your own advocate, while navigating so much that is quite literally out of your control, including your body.

Recently, I had this happen again and it wasn’t even breast cancer awareness month. It’s just this individual who fashions themselves as a public figure and an influencer. Oh and on the side they play at being some sort of a mental health professional and how’s that for rich? Even better? Can it be said that their wife is in the business of caring for other women as a medical professional?

Anyway, this one decided to take a photo from a publication that someone I know puts out. The writer who took the photo is an accomplished writer and journalist. She was actually with me the day I rang the bell after finishing treatment.

So a few years ago when I hit the 10 year mark, I invited friends to join me on a special garden tour to quietly celebrate that moment. It was literally the day of my surgery at the 10 year mark. So I was at year 10 post breast cancer and just starting my 10th year of Tamoxifen.

As I have written so many times before Tamoxifen is not for sissies. It’s also one of those drugs where you basically can go through it with no side effects, or you experience a combination of most of the side effects.

I had the full tour of side effects. The insane joint pain, cataracts, general bloating, occasional inexplicable depression, and terrible weight gain. Would I do it all over again? Yes I would because I’m alive, but it was not a fun drug and it was hard on my body. It was in fact, exhausting. And I live with the after effects of the side effects.

On this June 1 in the 10th year of my surgery when the photo was taken, I was at my heaviest that I have ever been in my entire life. And literally everything about me was bloated even my head, and I have a big head to begin with.

So it wasn’t an ideal photo of myself, but it was me in that moment, and it was honest. I appreciated the photo because I was there to have the photo taken.

Since I began this journey with breast cancer, I have lost quite a few people to breast cancer and other cancers. That weird survivors guilt is one of the things you live with, but it’s a little nagging pain inside your heart.

So this particular photo taken by a woman who was also with me on the day I rang the bell and then wrote about the garden tour, was used without permission by this other person. There’s that of course, and people don’t understand that if you’re going to use or borrow someone’s photo, you should give it proper attribution at a minimum. (I will ask you to note the screenshot above from the artists post that inspired this piece of writing in me.)

In addition to using the photo, this person completely gaslit me. Literally made up a fantastical story as it were and who does that? Well they do when you disagree with them. This whole fantasy was posted in their closed Facebook group. I am not a part of it. I was however, sent the screenshots.

The other thing that was so amazing is how other people became part of what can only be described as a pack mentality. Sociologically and psychologically as messed as it was, it was fascinating. It really was adult on adult bullying and to read hundreds of comments about yourself from people that for the most part didn’t know you, had never met or had a conversation with you, to people that actually did know you and other others that you had helped was really amazing.

One of the people who had a lot to say and likes to tell tall tales to make every situation about them was actually another breast cancer survivor. I just marveled at that.

And of course, in all of these comments came the fat and appearance shaming. And then there was the one woman who actually contacted me to let me know on one hand what a terrible person I was, and on the other hand how she was contacting my friends to do a mental health intervention. (By the way, she never contacted anyone.)

All of that was again supposed to upset me, but the weird thing is after going through breast cancer, you look at people with their silly little nonsense like this and you simply marvel.

As women we have this whole idea of self that is almost societally put upon us. After you’ve had breast cancer, it becomes something and entirely different.

We are living with our bodies that in essence have turned against us. We go through treatment and we’re either called warriors or we’re pink gentle flowers. In fact we’re just women. And we are women who survived something that’s a pretty big deal. So when this other bullshit finds its way to your door, you look at that like another science project.

Another post from this artist’s sub stack that has resonated with me is excerpted below.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. I just figured I would share this because when you read someone else’s writing that makes you think, you share it so maybe other people will get it or in this case because she is also a breast cancer survivor, maybe my sharing what she writes will help someone else.

Ladies don’t let any of the bastards in this world get you down. Keep on keeping on. We all have good days. We all have bad days. The point is we’re still alive. Try to celebrate that fact every day. 

Thanks for stopping by.

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Finding My Voice

Being heard through my new art series

BETH L. GAINER

JAN 03, 2025

Some time ago, I wrote about how my vocal chords were adversely affected by more than 20 years of teaching. After I eventually retired from teaching, I went through physical therapy sessions for my voice, which helped. But I’ve come to accept that it is forever compromised.

I’ve been thinking about voicelessness lately. Time and time again, I’ve been silenced – either by having my voice ignored or receiving abuse for voicing my opinion. In either case, I paid a heavy price.

Then came a breast cancer diagnosis that placed me face to face with mortality, terror, and loss of control. I was scared out-of-my-mind shitless that I was going to die young. I luckily had doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals who nurtured me through radiation, chemotherapy, and whatever other nasty medical happenings were awaiting me.

These treatments might have saved my life, and for this I am always grateful.

But being a cancer patient made me feel like I was losing control over my autonomy and my voice.

Because I was.

Before the first chemotherapy session began, my oncology nurse gave me a calendar of when I’d be coming in for treatments and bloodwork, as well as when I’d be seeing my oncologist. When I tried to bargain for a date that would be more convenient for me, she made it clear that I had no choice. I went to radiation treatment at the same time each day, as dictated by my radiation oncologist.

I felt my control over my own life ebbing away.

Granted, these medical professionals were all motivated by the same goal: to save my life. To this day, I am awestruck by a kind miracle: medical staff became part of my family.

And another kind miracle: years after treatment and a preventive double mastectomy and reconstruction, I have found my voice through art. As many of my readers know, I am working on a new oil paint series titled Breast Cancer, Female and Young, which displays tasteful nudes that tell a story on coping with this disease. The collection lends voice to the breast cancer experience. And through this collection – and through art in general – I have found healing and comfort.

This week I’ve been working diligently on the newest addition to this collection, titled Unfinished Business. As always, I like viewers to interpret the artwork as they see fit.