A year after her visit from Reach to Recovery, Vildibill, who is 62 and lives in El Cajon, became a volunteer herself. Jamie had had a double mastectomy the week before. Jamie was overflowing with questions and a piece of wonderful news. Her cancer had not spread to her lymph nodes, the first place breast cancer spreads. Vildibill, who had a recurrence of her cancer a year ago, didn't have definitive answers to all of Jamie's queries.
Women recover differently from surgery and react differently to chemotherapy.
But what was important to Jamie was that Vildibill had faced the same questions she had. You can't really talk to people who haven't been through it. They say it's going to be OK, but they really don't know. Talking the talk Like women who have gone through childbirth, women who have had breast cancer use a special vocabulary. Words like mastectomy, lumpectomy, reconstruction, prostheses, tamoxifin and lymphodema pepper their conversations.