Rooting For Breast Cancer Survivor, Dorothy Hamill, on Dancing With The Stars

Since Olympic Gold Medalist, Dorothy Hamill, had breast cancer with subsequent treatments of mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and hormones, I've been interested in watching her perform on Dancing With The Stars. This was week #1 of Dancing With The Stars and I just watched her  performance on the following link (you can tell she is just going to get stronger and stronger. She looks amazing as a 56 year old woman -- inspiring!):

Dance Performance plus Intro clip: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/videos/dorothy-hamill-dancing-with-the-stars-performance-week-1/

I also came across an article that talks about Dorothy Hamill's side-effects of breast cancer treatment. The link to the article is found here: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Blogs/CelebrityDiagnosis/22670

Like Dorothy Hamill, I was told that my cancer was not a death sentence. I still had a life and one that I should not stop living. The side-effects, however, will be a challenge. The ones mentioned in the above article are some that were mentioned to me by my doctors. In particular, cognitive function challenge (otherwise known as 'chemo-brain' or 'foggy brain') and fatigue are ones I was most concerned with given the fact that I had to take two academic and professional exams in the same semester of diagnosis and initial treatment of mastectomy. I had a choice of putting off the exams until the following semester -- but even without cancer it is normal to forget what one studied in terms of being 'test-ready'. I decided to pursue the exams this semester in between mastectomy and chemotherapy. For me it was beyond me -- it was a decision I needed to make and do for my family since I'm my son's primary clinician (a long story meant for another post or even blog). And, my doctors were completely supportive of this decision from a medical standpoint. I still had some small windows of opportunity and if the tests happen to fit into those windows then it was meant to be.


I'll be rooting for Dorothy Hamill this season -- and I'll be watching her with awe-stricken eyes for sure!