FEATURE STORY
The journey from darkness to light Buderimâs Cindy Scott turned a breast cancer diagnosis weeks out from her wedding into an opportunity for self-discovery and growth â and is now helping others do the same. WORDS: Leigh Robshaw.
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ost of us will remember 2020 as the year COVID hit. Buderim businesswoman Cindy Scott remembers it as the year she was diagnosed with breast cancer after a routine mammogram, just weeks out from her wedding. The doctors told her she had a 91 per cent chance of survival if she followed their treatment regime, but all she could think about was the remaining nine per cent. âIt was going to be the most amazing year,â she says. âI was getting married, I had my business plan, I was living in paradise at my home in Buderim, I had a great vision for my future.â It wasnât her first cancer diagnosis, but it was the most serious. The first one was a five-centimetre ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which was found in 2016 and wasnât aggressive. She had a lumpectomy and as the cancer wasnât in her lymph nodes, chemotherapy wasnât suggested and she refused radiation and drug therapy. The second diagnosis was a different story. It was a one-centimetre cluster in Ms Scottâs lymph nodes and this time, she needed a lumpectomy and surgery. This was followed by 13 rounds of chemotherapy and 18 herceptin infusions spanning 18 months. Following the treatment, she had a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction in July this year. âI had a lot of resistance to the double mastectomy,â she says. âPart of me feels like I should have been able to heal myself⌠A part of me thought, I might just not bother. But when I had genetic testing, I found I have both the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. The geneticist that tested me said he had never met anyone who had both. That kind of shook me. âI consulted with three different breast surgeons and I saw a naturopath who specialised in breast cancer. He said, âwomen with your diagnosis donât make it if they donât get a double mastectomyâ. So I booked it in. Itâs such a big thing and I thought, what am I going to look like? There was a bit of vanity going on â Iâm only 50. âIt was easy, in the end. I had the mastectomy and the reconstruction at the same time, slept for 48 hours, then woke up and thought, right, Iâm ready to get back to work. The breast surgeon found more cancer in the breast tissue, so thank god I did have the mastectomy.â Ms Scott was offered radiation and drug therapy once again, but was told she was in
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a âgrey zoneâ and could choose to decline. Following her mastectomy, she has gone down an alternative, natural path and this has led to her creating a beautiful cancer journal to help others who are going through a time fraught with great fear, doubt, confusion and uncertainty. A leadership and executive coach whoâd run a successful coaching business for 13 years before moving to the Sunshine Coast, Ms Scott was a positive person who found herself blindsided by her second diagnosis. âMy wedding had been cancelled, my hair was falling out and I went into a really dark place. I said to my fiancĂŠ, ânow is the perfect time for you to runâ and he said, âno, Iâm stayingâ. I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself, looking ugly and bald. Then I thought, what the f**k? I have all these coaching tools Iâve been using for clients for years. It was a lightbulb moment. I thought, of course! Why arenât I using
âI started taking accountability for what it was, what the cancer was here to teach meâ Cindy Scott
some of my positive psychology and coaching to help me out of this? It was a turning point for me. âOne of the most confronting things was thinking, why me? Why again? Why is this happening to me? I felt intuitively there was something deeper for me to get; some real soul growth for me. âI started taking accountability for what it was, what the cancer was here to teach me. I see a lot of people saying âletâs conquer cancerâ, âletâs fight itâ. I wanted to meet it with compassion and understand myweeklypreview.com.au
27/09/2021 2:44:04 PM
