Jan's Story

"I think once the initial shock of a diagnosis of bone mets passes and you realize you are not going to die right away, you start to slowly get your life back to a fairly even keel. My advise is to try something new, something you wouldn't do in a million years......"

I live in Cobar, outback NSW and was diagnosed with bone mets 6 weeks after arriving here in January. 2004. So it was a very scary time for me not knowing anyone, but things have changed and I have met some wonderful people - many of them with cancer, several with breast cancer.

My family talked me into going in the Archibald Art Exhibition, particularly my son. He said "Mum you have to have a big goal each year, something you wouldn't normally do, it will give you something to aim for" The Archibald was something I had never given a second thought to. I had never painted a real person before, all my paintings of people were in my head. So, I decided to do a self portrait, that way I wouldn't insult anyone if it didn't look like them, apart from that I live outback in NSW and the local streets weren't exactly teaming with celebrities!!!

I then found that in this little town where I had only lived a few months there were two other artists entering, which I thought was amazing. I dedicated my painting to all the women who have died, who are dying and who will die as a result of breast cancer. In the painting I am sitting sewing a piece of pink fabric. I didn't enter to win. The win for me was just to enter. To be well enough to finish the painting, achieving that was all that mattered to me.

I have called my painting "Sewing for sister Sue" My sister Susan, chose to have both her breasts removed, her chances of getting breast cancer were so high. She had masses in both breasts so, it was an extremely difficult choice for her to make. My mother has BC, I do of course, my mother’s sister died of BC and another of ovarian cancer. So I can only hope and pray that it stops with me and my daughters don't ever have to go down this road.

I think once the initial shock of a diagnosis of bone mets passes and you realize you are not going to die right away, you start to slowly get your life back to a fairly even keel. My advise is to try something new, something you wouldn't do in a million years, I think that should be our motto from now on, who knows what sorts of things we could accomplish!!!!