Handspiker, who turns 65 in June, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000.
“My welcome into a new decade I guess,” she said. “I had to have surgery there was no choice and since then I’ve had to go back for a lumpectomy one year but it was okay.”
She is honoured to have been asked to be this years’ honorary chair and one thing she said about cancer and especially breast cancer, is that it is a family disease. Everyone gets involved.
“It’s quite an ordeal for a significant other to go through. They don’t quite know where to put their hands,” she said. “The first time you take a shower and look at yourself it kind of chokes you up a bit.”
She said luckily her husband spent 27 years as a medic in the service so the surgery scar did not faze him.
“It’s just (that) learning to be comfortable with your body again is really hard,” Handspiker said.
Surgery was nothing new as she has had 26 surgeries un-related to cancer ranging from a triple bi-pass to gall bladder removal.
“There isn’t much I haven’t tried but I’ve still got my appendix,” she laughs.
The key for survival is a good sense of humour and a positive attitude, she noted.
“If you don’t have a sense of humour, I don’t think you could handle it mentally.”
The Relay for Life on June 4 will be a first for her, but she suspects that once the ice is broken, it will not be her last relay.
“I always meant to do it but there’s just a gut feeling if you get around (cancer) too much that you might get it back again,” she said.
Part of her role as honorary chair is to give a speech and lead everyone around the field during the first lap.
ldelong@digbycourier.ca
