Helping breast cancer patients

Giulia Parrotta talks about the healing process and the Canadian Cancer Society

I know what one feels in such a situation, and I know how important it is that someone encourages you, shows you through personal experience that you can make it, that nothing is lost."
Giulia Parrotta likes to pay visit to women diagnosed with breast cancer and bring them her own experience, a positive one. "I'm volunteering for the Canadian Cancer Society," says Giulia, 57, originally from Sora (Frosinone, Italy). "In addition to my Weston Road neighbourhood, I occasionally go to Etobicoke, or Woodbridge, to lend psychological support to women who are going through what I went through. I feel I'm doing something important."
Giulia was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988. "My family doctor noticed something strange and advised me to see a specialist," remembers Parrotta. "The biopsy revealed I had cancer. I was 41, I had two daughters aged 18 and 15, and an illness that terrorized me."
Parrotta wasted no time and decided to undergo surgery as soon as possible. "I went to see another specialist because my husband felt that a second opinion was advisable, but the new doctor was also adamant in recommending surgery, so one week later they removed one breast and some lymph nodes that had also been attacked by the disease."
After that came chemotherapy, nine months of it. "At the time the standard chemo cycle was of one year, but I only did nine months because I was sick, I got a bad flu, my blood had abnormal values," continues Giulia. "That was an awful period, but with the help of my husband Gilberto, of my daughters - even though I tried not to distract them from their lives and their school commitments - of my friends and family, I managed to see it through. It was a veritable nightmare."
Since then, notes a joyous Parrotta, 15 years have passed. "Now I undergo yearly check-ups, and thank God everything seems fine," she smiles. "I'm glad, of course, that everything went well, but I have some hard memories. That day in the specialist's studio was like receiving a hammer blow to the top of my head: my world was crumbling around me."
But luckily, when the cancer is discovered on time, the world doesn't really crumble. "You find out that you have a lot of friends, more than you thought; you see a lot of solidarity surrounding you, dear people who support you when you're depressed, and then you start believing you can do it, and then you start knowing you will do it," concludes Giulia Parrotta, a winner.

Publication Date: 2003-10-19
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3255