HALIFAX, NOVA
SCOTIA | Sunday September 3, 2006
Live life ‘with eyes wide open,’ cancer survivor says
Carol Ann Cole was in the final stages of proofreading her motivational memoir
when she was diagnosed with skin cancer.
A blister-like spot on her face had started to bleed a bit, so she went to
the doctor and a biopsy confirmed what she had feared.
It was an ironic discovery.
Much of her book — and her life — is about the devastating disease.
She battled breast cancer about 14 years ago while watching her mother succumb
to it.
"Like so many others I lived with the belief that ‘cancer happens to someone
else, not to me,’ " Cole, 60, said in a recent e-mail interview.
"It scares the hell out of me."
But she recovered, living to walk away from her career as an executive at Bell
Canada in Toronto and concentrate on some of her other life goals.
She chronicles her experiences in Lessons Learned Upside the Head – From Boardroom
to Bedroom, Career to Cancer and Beyond.
"I have made the decision to view cancer as a doorway rather than as a
death," she said. "Even though it continues to kill so many people
I believe that with every death, and every diagnosis, doors are left open for
us to walk through."
Still, the decision to leave her job wasn’t easy. She had struggled hard to
climb the corporate ladder in the 1970s and 1980s, when women were hitting a
much lower glass ceiling.
"Behind my back I was referred to as Bell’s country bumpkin because I
was from rural Nova Scotia and came with a high school education," she
said.
"Women didn’t openly speak of their ambitions in the workforce."
She was giving up much more than the huge paycheque and generous perks. But
she had a list of things she wanted to do; her plans consisted of moving back
to Nova Scotia, giving back to the cancer community, doing some public speaking
and penning her memoirs.
"I am a great believer in what have often been called the ‘soft skills’
— listening, caring, sharing and helping others," Cole said.
"We put too much emphasis on the diploma on the wall and we forget that
people need to feel they work ‘with’ us not ‘for’ us. It is these soft skills
and the development of them over time that allows those around us to feel connected
to us."
She hopes her book will guide others on similar paths as she shares her experiences
of leaving home in Wilmot as an 18-year-old, embarking on a challenging career,
getting married, having a child, then getting divorced and being a single mother
— all while still in her early 20s.
"I wanted to write this book to remind people that honesty is the greatest
way to show your level of intelligence," Cole said. "There is no sin
in saying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘can you help me?’
"The sin is in pretending we don’t need anyone to help us ever."
Back in the 1990s she started a fundraising campaign for cancer research by
producing thousands of Comfort Hearts, small pieces of pewter to reassure sufferers
as they hold them in their hands.
More than 214,000 have been produced, resulting in over $1 million being raised
for cancer research and Cole becoming a member of the Order of Canada.
Cole hopes her story will remind people that it doesn’t take much for someone
to be happy and successful.
"My book is about living life with your eyes wide open and acknowledging
that your blessings do not necessarily include your cars or your cash,"
she said.
"It is about caring from your heart and living in the moment – living
for today and enjoying life to the fullest."
Although she learned in August that the doctor had gotten all of her skin cancer,
the fear of her breast cancer reoccurring still lurks in her mind.
"I don’t dwell on it but I would be less than honest if I did not admit
that after all these years I still worry now and then," she said.
Jeffrey Simpson is a freelance book reviewer.
Lessons Learned Upside the Head: From
Boardroom to Bedroom, Career to Cancer
and Beyond
by Carol Ann Cole
(Pottersfield Press, soft cover, 190 pages,$18.95)
