The Work of Breast Cancer: The Breast Cancer Diaries

When Ann Murray Paige, a television journalist based in Maine, was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 38, her sister-in-law suggested that the experience would make a great documentary. And so the filming of The Breast Cancer Diaries, airing this month on the documentary channel, began.

Well beyond the basic processes of cancer treatment, Ann shares intimate details of her emotional and physical landscape during her months long treatment of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, bringing her reporter's eye to the telling. In one scene soon after she has started chemotherapy, she reviews her day planner and points to the expected day that her hair will start falling out, as if she were planning a meeting. Although there is an air of efficiency and perhaps detachment, she also takes us into the real emotional reality when her hair does start responding to the drugs. We see her sitting in a barber chair at a hair removal specialist who pulls her hair out gently in clumps. Then she shares with us the moment she unveils her head to her husband, the two of them sitting on their bed.

Ann ruminates to the camera about her ambivalence regarding chemotherapy, and we see her husband sitting with their young son reading "Kemo Shark," a children's book which explains chemotherapy and hair loss to help allay children's fears about parents undergoing this ordeal. Throughout the film, she shares the general emotional state of her four year old son as well as their conversations, revealing his fears and insights. After her double mastectomy, she explains the removal of her breasts to her son who responds, "Well, you still have your belly button!" (Belly Button productions is the name of her company.) Later, we see her preparing for a date with her husband with her son as helper. He picks out a dress for her, and then suddenly remembers her prosthetic breasts. "Don't forget your breasts!" he says, and then he goes into the closet to get them for her.

On her first day of chemotherapy, as a dose of the sickly kool-aid red adriamycin is injected into her veins, Ann sits nestled (or backing up into as if she's trying to get away) in her husband's arms weeping, "I've always kept myself so healthy, I've always kept myself so healthy." As rational as one might be about the positive effects of chemotherapy treatment, there is a great fear attached to allowing substances that are also lethal enter one's body. And sorrow. The sorrow of chemotherapy. As the chemotherapy progresses, Ann's diaries get shorter. # 5, #6, #7--we see her briefly sitting her bed, and she just tells us how tired she is.

What strikes me most about the film is Ann's head-on, straight up attention to and sharing of the emotional experience -- both hers and her children's. Her attention to the enormity of the situation in an environment that begs minimalizing. Barely out of surgery, she is lying in the hospital bed just after having had both of her breasts removed. Every nurse, resident and doctor that comes in has told her she is going home today--less than 24 hours after her surgery. She can't believe they are rushing her out after this life-altering event, and wonders if she would have the same experience if she had just had her testicles removed. Equally striking is the love she and her husband share--she refers repeatedly to how much he loves her (and he is there, in the background, foreground, supporting her every step), and talks about his sudden interest in her butt. She recounts a conversation where she asks him if he's so interested in her butt now that she doesn't have breasts and he tells her that if her butt was removed too he would just find another part of her beautiful body to focus his attention on.

Ultimately the work is a useful model for those who support loved ones going through cancer treatment, particularly for families supporting young children through witnessing a loss of vitality (and hair) in a caregiver and working through the fears associated with a parent temporarily taking their full attention away. Ann, her husband and family are simply incredible and loving with each other and the children.