Stronger Than Cancer By: Chantal Rice
I’ve never had what I would call a positive relationship with my body. And it’s hardly been a reciprocal kinship: Throughout the decades, I have pummeled it with physical stress, often ignored cues that I needed rest or repose, indulged in copious amounts of cuisine that clearly lacked the nutrients my body craved and even become vexed and exasperated at my body for refusing to exist in the lithe, svelte and nimble state I so desperately desired.
Since childhood, I have gone out of my way to avoid physical activity, not because my body wasn’t capable, but because I was, quite simply put, lazy. When my elementary school physical-education teacher instructed the class to run the quarter-mile lap around the playground, I would routinely fake an asthma attack to get out of it, which often resulted in my teacher rolling her eyes at me and becoming exasperated with my lack of interest in any physical movement.
Once puberty hit, I particularly began to value the appearance of my body. Still, I refused to become physically active or tone down my dedication to devouring carbs by the truckload, always assuming there would be plenty of opportunity later in life to make up for the many sins I’d committed against my body in my formative years. By college, I’d added beer to my less-than-nutritional diet and continued to be angered by my body’s reluctance to meet societal standards of thinness and beauty.
It wasn’t until my mid-30s, following a contentious divorce and with a growing longing for control over my life and my body, that I discovered a physical activity I truly enjoyed: roller derby. Clad in roller skates and protective gear, I became emboldened to force my body to accomplish the kind of physical tasks I’d never even considered asking it to undertake. For six years, I dished out and welcomed the type of pummeling one might expect from a car accident or wrestling a gorilla. I pushed my body in a way I never had before, committing to long-distance skates that made my thighs scream in agony, perfecting hip checks and shoulder taps that left me bruised and battered, reconfiguring my diet so it would strengthen my new body, and engaging in high-intensity boot-camp style training off the track to further enhance my on-track abilities.
My body responded by slimming down and displaying remarkably powerful muscles in areas that had long remained flabby and puny. My body also made clear that if I were to continue abusing it with such rigorous physical activity, I would need to provide it with a level of recuperation and restoration the likes of which I had never experienced. That’s when I discovered the power of yoga.
Never had I encountered an activity that could so affect my entire body in such a positive way. The poses, while challenging at times, were received by my body with much gratitude and the assurance that I was finally providing my physical self with the soothing and rejuvenating movement it craved desperately. Likewise, my yoga practice left me in a blissful and elated mental and emotional state that lasted long after I left the studio.
Just when my body and I had come to an agreement in life that if I took care of it, nourished it, accepted its limitations and committed to pushing those limitations (while also allowing myself the occasional indulgence of pizza and beer), it would respond in kind. That’s when I was hit with a physical bombshell unlike any other: I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Cancer was, by far, the scariest thing I’ve ever encountered in my life. But given that I have a very loving and supportive partner and family and a brilliant care team, I decided the very day I was diagnosed that it would not beat me, that I would do whatever was required of me to ensure I survived. Cancer would not end me. This meant coming to terms with the idea that my body would never be the same again.
Despite a fear so overwhelming that it threatened to encompass me, shatter me emotionally and utterly unravel any tenacity I may have had, I resolved to fight, to openly welcome the battle with cancer—even if it meant removing my breast. My body would just have to accommodate my decision and acquiesce to major changes in my attempt to rid it of this savage disease.
I willingly underwent a mastectomy and later much more extensive DIEP flap reconstruction surgery that involved an extensive and difficult recovery. While this experience tested my resolve and taxed my body in the most arduous ways, it was also extraordinarily enlightening. I never could have imagined my body could endure such an undertaking—and do so obligingly.
Throughout my cancer journey, I have learned that whatever happens in life, my body and I are in this together. It can achieve so much more than I ever gave it credit for. It is more than simply the vessel in which I live my life; it is the physical embodiment of my actions, my emotions, my soul. And it is much more resilient than I ever gave it credit for. I—and my body—are stronger than cancer!