'You are more than your cancer'

Her eyebrow wrinkled in concern as she lightly touched a small growth above her one remaining breast.

It isn't the first bump Beverly Dalling has seen or had removed over the years, and chances are it won't be the last.

A 15-year breast cancer survivor, Dalling bears the marks of her fight against breast cancer and the lymphoma that plagues her skin, but the worst scars are internal.

The first time cancer came up, she had just watched a close friend struggle with the disease.

"I was devastated and thought, 'Does this mean a death sentence?' " she said.

Dalling watched her friend, a new grandmother like herself, curl up in a ball from the pain and later succumb to the disease.

"I thought, 'Why her?' " Dalling said. "Is that going to be me?"

Many cancer survivors shared their experiences with chemotherapy and radiation treatment Saturday at the third annual Utah Cancer Survivorship Day at the University Marriott Hotel. According to rehabilitation specialist Gregory Miller, it's the "leftovers after cancer" that matter most.

"You have a cancer self and a non-cancer self," said Miller, director of supportive care and rehabilitation at Utah Cancer Specialists. "You are more than your cancer and you have the ability to manage your leftovers."

Describing the miserable disease and treatments that most in the audience know all too well, Miller said people shouldn't have to go through so much pain.

"Pain is manageable," he said. "It can be treated through meditation, support groups, massages, exercise, exercise, exercise."

For women like Sylvia Garcia-Rickard, the important thing was not just to beat the disease, but learn from the experience and make it better for others.

When the now-58-year-old Hispanic woman noticed a small lump growing on one of her breasts 16 years ago, she talked to a doctor who told her not to worry because her age and ethnicity made it unlikely to be cancer.

A few years later, she was diagnosed with cancer, but instead of consulting with her about treatment options, her doctors initially turned to her husband. They were surprised by her questions trying to gather information about the disease, she said.

"My doctor said that he wasn't used to Hispanic women asking him questions," Garcia-Rickard said. "I said, 'Too bad, you better get used to it.' "