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Carmen Cancer Two
October 12, 2007
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Cancer can mean trying
time for a marriage. But one local couple has an inspiring
story of
how they coped with disease and came out stronger on the other side.
During the last decade, breast cancer has put Carmen and Robin Santerre’s marriage
to the test. Carmen was diagnosed with breast cancer once in
1996 and again in 2005.
Through the years of treatment Carmen says Robin was always right by her side.
“My husband was always there. I can’t say what I wished he would have done because
he did all he could do. He stayed with me while he took me to my doctor’s appointments,
my biopsies, my chemo treatments. He would pick me up and take me home. He would
put me in bed he would come and check on me,” said Carmen.
Her husband says he was just trying to help her as much as he could. “You can’t
run from it. It’s a terrible thing to see somebody go through that. You just have
to support her as much as you can. You have to believe that she’s going to get through
it and support her and help her believe that she’s going to get through it.”
Carmen’s fight against cancer took a toll on her appearance. She says simply glancing
at herself in the mirror was often too hard to do.
“When you’re losing your hair and you’re looking in the mirror like oh God look
at me. You can’t even recognize the person you’re looking at. He still said I was
beautiful with no hair,” said the survivor.
While Carmen was learning to love the way she looked, Robin was learning to look
at his wife in a whole new way; as a strong survivor.
He says, “I’m
not as tough as I thought I was. It’s a humbling thing to see it.
My wife’s a lot tougher than me. To go through what she went through, believe me
you’ve got to be tough.”
Carmen’s advice to women is to keep up with your yearly mammograms. She says early
detection helped to save her life.
Right
now there are more than two million breast cancer survivors in the United
States.
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