BREAST CANCER
Jan bought a wig almost immediately to prepare herself
for the long road ahead.
“I didn’t want to be exposed,” she said. “Having hair
is such a large part of femininity and being a woman. I
started collecting hats and scarves long before I started
losing my hair.”
G A I N I N G S T R E N G T H F R O M H O P E
Throughout her treatment process, Jan said the word
hope
took on a whole newmeaning. After reading a book
called
The Anatomy of Hope
, by Jerome Groopman, M.D.,
she said she found a different kind of hope within herself.
“This book taught me that it’s impossible to fght un-
less you have the hope of healing,” she said.
One particular passage struck Jan: “Hope is the elevat-
ing feeling we experience when we see in the mind’s
eye—a path to a better future. Hope acknowledges the
signifcant obstacles and deep pitfalls along that path.
True hope has no room for delusion.”
Jan said, “That book gave me the hope to fght and
a hope that my family would stand by me through the
whole process.”
Her family didmore than just stand by. Her sons, Scott,
19, and Stephen, 17, and her husband, John, a family
practice doctor, never left her side.
“He was absolutely the best husband to have—he
didn’t miss a beat,” Jan smiled.
Jan’s sons were inspired by her battle with cancer. To
celebrate her success in healing, they decided to take
photos of her without her hair or wig. Jan donated framed
prints of the photos to the Kootenai Cancer Center in
Post Falls, where they are now on display.
The frst photo,
Uncovering the Hope Within
, was taken
by Scott. Jan said after her chemotherapy treatments
Scott approached her and asked if he could take her
photo while she was bald. Together they came up with
the idea to involve all of the hats and scarves she wore
throughout the treatment process.
“I wanted to do this because it made me think about
how frightening it can be to be confronted with cancer,”
Jan said. “Doing this made me dig deep within myself
and fnd that hope that I wanted to share with others.”
Stephen’s photo captures a moment in time, Jan said.
“He was taking our family
photos one day and he said,
‘Mom I want a picture of just
you. Let’s do one to celebrate
you being alive.’”
Jan said she is more than
thankful for the care and
treatment that helped save
her life.
“I had the most amaz-
ing cancer team,” she said.
“Dr. Tezcan, Patricia Gra-
ham and Laurey Powers
at the Cancer Center were
amazing. Dr. Sarkis was
my surgeon—amazing—
all of them were amazing.
That’s one reason I wanted
to donate my pictures: my
deep love for these people and what they’ve done for
me and my family. There is no promise you’ll make
it through, but a lot of people do, and these people
helped me get there.”
Dr. Tezcan believes that Jan’s attitude and family sup-
port were big players in the healing process.
“Her positivity and strong family support made it
much easier for her to cope with the treatments,” he
said. “She was able to stay active and hold on to some
strength.”
Along with saying thank you to her medical team, Jan
hopes that the portraits offer encouragement and hope
to others as they go through similar experiences.
“It’s nice to show other women that it’s OK to be bald
and you can survive it,” Jan said. “I hope these pictures
are a reminder to patients to do self checks and get yearly
mammograms—cancer can hit anyone, but I’m proof it
can be stopped.”
—Continued from page 12
14
“
Hope
is the elevating feeling we
experience when we see in the mind’s
eye—a path to a better future. Hope
acknowledges the signifcant obstacles
and deep pitfalls along that path. True
hope has no room for delusion.”
—From
The Anatomy of Hope
, by Jerome Groopman, M.D.