Relay honoree, Barbara Tuscany, still cancer free

The first article on Barbara Tuscany’s battle against breast
cancer was published in September 2010, and can be found by
searching for her name in the online archives at www.hbgtrib.com.
Barbara Tuscany has been involved with Healdsburg’s Relay for
Life for more than 10 years, but this year’s relay promises to be
unlike any other.
“There will be lots of tears,” Tuscany predicted.
There have been tears before, but they were different. At this
time last year, Tuscany had just been diagnosed with breast cancer:
hormone receptive invasive ductile carcinoma, to be exact. Now
she’s cancer free, and has been named this year’s Relay for Life
honoree.
“It’s kind of overwhelming. I’m not the kind of person who wants
attention for myself. I speak up because I want to help other
people out,” Tuscany said.
She admitted that she’s not sure how she’s going to handle the
opening ceremony—in which she, as honoree, will participate.
“Last year was really hard because I was deep in the throes of
my cancer treatment, and I had a lot of people there holding me up.
This year I’m really deep in the throes of the side effects, which
may be permanent. I know there will still be a lot of people
supporting me… but in the past I’ve had to walk away when people
spoke to open the ceremony at 10 o’clock, because we’ve known so
many people who’ve died of cancer,” Tuscany said.
When Tuscany was interviewed in September, she was staring down
the final stretch of her cancer treatment: radiation therapy. She
completed radiation therapy just before Thanksgiving of last
year—which, she said, left her plenty to be grateful for as she sat
down to feast with her family.
During her cancer treatment, Tuscany was an outspoken advocate
for the American Cancer Society. She also emphasized the importance
of preventative care, including mammograms and self exams.
While those elements remain very important to Tuscany, her
message has since broadened in scope.
“You cannot make the assumption that your doctor will know
everything about your cancer, and will tell you everything about
your cancer, because there are so many cancers out there,” Tuscany
said. “At a large HMO, your oncologist is not necessarily talking
to your endocrinologist or your other specialists… They don’t pick
up the phone and talk to each other because they’re just not
allowed the time to do that.”
Tuscany is not only a cancer survivor, but a woman who has faced
numerous, possibly permanent side effects from chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy-induced neuropathy has resulted in chronic pain and
limited mobility. Tuscany still cannot walk up stairs, and must
lift her leg with her hands in order to raise it. Her autonomic
nerves were affected, and she sometimes experiences blurry vision
and has difficulty swallowing.
Because she was so often an outlier when it came to experiencing
side effects, Tuscany is now trying to emphasize how important it
is to advocate for yourself in the chaotic milieu of HMOs, PPOs,
primary care physicians, and specialists.
“You’ve got to have a strong primary care physician, and you’ve
really got to advocate for yourself,” Tuscany said. “You’ve got to
differentiate yourself from all those other patients right now, and
get them to like you, get them to care about you, weigh the system
in your favor.”
Effective advocacy, Tuscany noted, includes being aware of your
body—and not taking ‘no’ for an answer if you feel something is
wrong.
“People don’t know they have cancer until they go for a test.
But how do you know you have cancer brewing, so you can go for a
test?” Tuscany said. “There’s a lot of cancer you can’t feel.
That’s the part of the awareness that’s not dealt with—before the
diagnosis, how you were feeling about your body.”
When Tuscany felt off, her doctor diagnosed her with depression.
Now she recognizes that it was an early warning sign of her breast
cancer.
“When there’s something odd, check with your doctor, and have
them rerun your labs. If you’re still not feeling good, keep
bugging your doctor,” Tuscany said. “For us 24-hour super moms,
it’s hard. If I’m tired, I think it’s because I’m not working out
at the gym enough.”
Barbara Tuscany is a member of the Healdsburg Community Church
Relay for Life team, and will be participating at the pre-relay
Paint the Town Purple event this weekend. Her team’s fundraising
efforts includes a quilt raffle and bracelet sales.
Lynda Hopkins can be reached at [email protected].