‘People Need To Know You Can Live’: Breast Cancer Survivor Offers Example Of Happy Ending
Nearly 20 years ago, Nancy Witherell was diagnosed with cancer. Now, as she looks back, she hopes to portray a message of hope to young women.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Twenty Years Later, Santa Rosa Breast Cancer Survivor Turns Advocate
Nancy Witherell used to be something of a comic for cancer. Inside she was broken in pieces, a young mother with an aggressive breast cancer made all the more ominous by the fact that she was pregnant when it was discovered. But humor, including antics like painting her bald head pumpkin orange for Halloween and topping it off with a green toilet paper stem — helped her survive a dark time when an early death seemed inevitable...Twenty years later, the Santa Rosa woman looks back on that traumatic time with a more sober perspective, while rejoicing in the rich midlife she never expected to have. (McConahey, 9/29)