Cancer took, but also gave, to this local survivor

MANARY.

In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness month, the Bracebridge Examiner/Gravenhurst Banner is endeavouring to raise awareness of the disease through a special editorial feature.
Beginning in today’s edition and continuing until Oct. 19, our award-winning editorial staff will tell the stories of local survivors, their families, and the research and prevention measures that are helping in the battle against breast cancer.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among women. An estimated 23,000 Canadian women will be diagnosed with the disease this year. Approximately 5,300 of them will die.
As a lead sponsor of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation’s CIBC Run for the Cure happening Oct. 2 in Bracebridge, Metroland North Media, the Examiner’s parent company, recognizes the important role media can play in drawing attention to fundraising initiatives that support this cause. Together, our support assists in the research that will one day find a cure for this disease.
Cancer can be beaten and the battle is one Marilynne Manary wishes everybody would wage.
“I know a lot of people wouldn’t say this, but I wish everyone in the world could get cancer at some time,” the breast cancer survivor from Gravenhurst said. “It makes you really thankful; it gives you a new perspective on people and life.”
“You need to see the people (in cancer treatment centres), their stamina, their resilience is incredible,” she added. “It was an incredible journey, a marvellous experience. Everyone would appreciate their employer, their life, their family (more). Because you don’t know how bad it really could be.”
Now 62, Manary is five years cancer-free. She cherishes every tomorrow like she does every moment of her fight with the disease.
Proud, full of life, pointed honesty and zesty humour, the service manager of Robinson Hauling near Kilworthy after a regular checkup and annual mammogram. She is no stranger to the disease. Her mother lost her battle with breast cancer when Manary was 40, and her father passed away due to a form of liver cancer in his 80s, right after her initial diagnosis in 2006.
“I never told him, but cancer is rampant in my family,” she said.
After her mother passed, she began annual regular mammograms, which ultimately may have saved her life.
Manary explained in inspecting the results of the mammogram the radiologist in Huntsville found no lump, but did see an odd, “jagged shaped” cell, tiny and hardly perceivable.
“He said it probably wasn’t anything, but he gave it a second thought and wanted me to have another test,” she said. “And thank God for him for suggesting that.”
A second test done in Bracebridge in January 2006 revealed not much more, really just a jagged, dark cell less than a millimetre in diameter, but her medical team wasn’t satisfied, recommending a third test.
“Again, they said it really doesn’t look like anything, but they said ‘you’re going for a biopsy just to be sure,’” Manary explained.
The biopsy revealed the cell was indeed cancerous. High levels of estrogen in her body had made it difficult to see, because, as she explained, estrogen makes the breast tissue dense. It may have also been the cause of the cancer.
“I had a tough kind (of breast cancer) because you’d never feel it, there were no lumps to feel,” she said. “It’s kind of a weird thing, when they do find something there’s a peace that comes over you, a sense of relief. Then you fight; the fight kicks in when you accept.”
By June of that year she had her surgery and the mass removed, leading to 26 days straight, save weekends, of radiation treatment. Manary said she was fortunate enough to be able to take the radiation treatment at the Ontario hospital of her choice, and she went to Kingston where she was born and where her sister still lived.
“I was lucky because I didn’t have to have chemo, and I also got to be with my family,” she said.
A hobby writer who likes to pen short stories and articles, Manary spent her free time in Kingston jotting down her life story.
“I thought, well, if this was going to be my end I wanted my children to really know who I was and about my life, something they could have if I was gone. A lot of it is funny, but it would be something personal,” she said.
But the tale and journey wasn’t quite over. She explained after the radiation therapy was done, a few tests were done and on her insistence, an MRI was performed. A lump and new cancer was found in the same breast, although a different type from the first.
She said having gone through the first battle, her spirits did not sink and she only became more resolved to keep up the fight.
It was removed and just this past spring, after tests and checks twice a year since, she has been pronounced cancer-free.
“It’s taught me that you don’t have a lot of time, so get moving,” she said. “Once you have it (cancer) you can’t change it, you fight it. And I can say after it all that my relationship with God grew a lot closer; you find strength in your family, going back to where things began and important things in life.”
Her advice to all women is to have pap smears every year and regular annual mammograms after 40.
“Also, keep a good outlook; if you need to know what I mean, go to Sick Kids (hospital), it will change your outlook. There are a lot of determined and incredible people there who have it a lot worse than most of us,” she said.
And as for the life story she wrote for her children?
“I haven’t given it to them yet, it’s not done.”

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