A PARTICIPANT PROFILE
Michelle Hastings

Ask those with cancer the date of their diagnosis and most likely they’ll be able to tell you without thinking twice. Michelle Hastings, 32, is no exception. “Friday, May 23, 2008, was my mother’s birthday and a week before my son, Kevin’s second birthday,” says Michelle wistfully. “When I was diagnosed with colon cancer, it was devastating and my only reaction was to cry.”

That Friday was the beginning of Memorial Day weekend. Michelle had to deal with getting through three long days with little information other than “you have cancer.” “I remember going to dinner that night and trying to keep a smile on my face for our children. I kept thinking, ‘How am I going to tell sweet little Kevin and Julia, our beautiful 6-year old autistic daughter, that Mommy has cancer?’” Michelle continues, “Wednesday morning was my surgery and I had high hopes that it hadn’t spread to the lymph nodes and that chemo wasn’t going to be needed.” As it turns out, Michelle had 20 lymph nodes that needed to be pulled, and upon further testing, five of them had cancer. Chemo would be part of her treatment.

Several sessions into Michelle’s chemo, both her surgeon and oncologist recommended that she visit The Wellness Community (TWC). “I kind of brushed off their suggestion,” says Michelle with a grin. “I thought ‘I can do this on my own.’”

In time, Michelle decided to check out TWC. “The staff treated me so warmly that I joined a weekly participant group which became my lifeline. When you are diagnosed with cancer you can lose most of your other identities—mother, wife, sister, daughter, employee—they all get overshadowed. Not at TWC. There, I get to be the real Michelle, not Michelle, the cancer patient.”