Edith Bante believes something positive can come from every experience — even cancer. It brought her an appreciation of life and of the small details that she wasn’t open to before.
Edith’s cancer story began in November 2022 when she was diagnosed with stage 2 ovarian cancer. She had surgery to remove a 7-centimeter tumor in her ovary, followed by six rounds of chemotherapy.
Due to side effects from treatment, she lost her hair and felt sick. Her exercise consisted of walking to the bathroom.
When she completed treatment and visited Waterford Place Cancer Resource Center — which provides services and support, free of charge, to anyone affected by cancer — she began attending exercise classes there that helped her regain her strength and stamina. She says the classes helped her feel more fit and improved her sense of well-being and feelings of happiness.
“Exercise does make a difference,” she says. “It does.”
She recommends Waterford Place to people with cancer. Like many things in life, she tells them this, too, shall pass.
A sense of community
Edith says Waterford Place is wonderful and one of her favorite things about it is the sense of community.
“Everybody there went through the same thing,” she says. “When you tell someone you have cancer, you get a reaction. It’s an uncomfortable feeling. But if you talk to someone who has gone through the same experience as you, there’s a natural empathy. They’re not uncomfortable talking about it.”
Edith is now a survivor and recently returned to work full time. A bilingual teaching assistant, she is glad to have her job and loves the kids she works with. But she tries to keep in contact with her Waterford Place friends.
Sharing advice and more
She attends the Gyne SISTERs (Sharing Inspiration and Support Through Education and Resources) support group — open to anyone who has had a gynecological cancer diagnosis — and benefits from advice that other participants share.
“It’s advice about minor things — like how to manage irritations on your skin or creams that help,” she explains. She shares tips she learned along the way, too.
And through Waterford Place’s partnership with Imerman Angels, she now volunteers as a mentor for other people with cancer.
She is happy to show others that you can go through a hard time and come out the other end and keep living. It may not be perfect, she says, but it’s a new normal.
Since completing her treatment in 2023, Edith’s new normal includes neuropathy, a condition where she experiences tingling, numbness and pain. But she says, “I can live with it.”
