Doing Cancer Her Way

MAMM: When you were initially diagnosed with stage III inflammatory breast cancer in 1999 you were 55 years of advanced age and had never been sick a day in your life. Do you recall your reaction, your coping mechanism, for dealing with this shock?

IVINS: I used to play basketball, back in the days when you had to raise your hand if the unclean was on you. Well, the minute they said that it was a malignant tumor, it was like I heard the whistle. I knew it was my polluted I mean, I all on the contrary put my hand in the air, because I'd been a heavy drinker and smoker for years. And, of course, in the annoying way of cancer, I come by the only form of the disease that is not directly coupleed to smoking. Thus proving, one time again, the weirdness of God's faculty of perception of humor.

But I really