Barbara Battin is a Sinclair faculty member, and a two-time breast cancer survivor that has been in remission for the past 14 years.
Battin was first diagnosed in 1983 at the age of 32, and then again during 2000 as a newlywed. As the first in her family to be afflicted with the disease, she said she felt that it was unusual for somebody as young as she was, to be diagnosed.
During a self-examination, she remembers feeling an unusual lump that prompted a visit to her gynecologist. It was after a mammogram screening that Battin discovered she had breast cancer.
“If I hadn’t felt the lump they wouldn’t have found the cancer, so I was very fortunate,” she said.
Battin’s diagnosis was the beginning of her journey through living with breast cancer. The treatment she went through for both occasions were different, due to medical advances over time.
“In the years just before I had breast cancer, you would have a mastectomy without a question. They were just experimenting with radiation for breast cancer treatment, and fortunately I had a mastectomy the first time,” she said. “I didn’t have chemo or any radiation treatment.”
Battin’s first recovery process was essentially the healing of the incision scar from her mastectomy, which kept her in the hospital for a week. Battin’s arm underwent routine exercises to return to its regular motor efficiency.
However, on her second diagnosis, this was not the case. She had a lumpectomy procedure that removed the cancerous tumor, and then underwent chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation. It was a harrowing time for Battin’s body as chemotherapy treatments are known to cause bouts of nausea and hair loss.
The physical recovery took a while, but it was dealing with the emotional struggles of existential ism that forced Battin to examine her life in a different perspective. She said she was faced with a lot of redefining questions.
“How do I live if I might die and how will I live if I might be here for a long time? That was a part of the recovery process too,” she said. “Mortality forced me into thinking about things people typically don’t consider until later in life.”
Battin made radical changes in her life. She used her expenses to spend time with the people that mattered most to her.
“I began to make decisions about how I spend my money… I didn’t buy furniture, but what I did with my disposable income was to choose experiences.”
Traveling through Europe with her mother and doing a service project in Mexico were some of the destinations Battin explored and enjoyed. Shortly after recovering from her second bout with breast cancer, she finished traveling to all 50 states. Among her other life accomplishments, she has been an ordained clergy woman in the Presbyterian Church for 35 years. She said she finds joy in inner-faith dialogue, along with cooperation and understanding of religion. Now retired, she spends her time baking and gardening, and has recently returned from a trip to Canada.
“I think it’s really important to find out what your core identity is and the things you can let go and the things you can cherish and value. It’s a great clarifier of what life is about,” she said. “A lot of folks do not like having limits but limits help us figure out what’s important.”
Although Battin’s situation was unfortunate, she said it changed the way she leads her life, for the better.