Cancer Nurse Turns Cancer Patient, Still Smiling
Fox Point resident Peggy Long talks about the battle between having that "edge" from what you learn as a cancer nurse, and not letting that knowledge of how bad things can get consume you.
After 22 years as a cancer nurse, Margaret (Peggy) Long of Fox Point became a cancer patient. She said while working as a cancer nurse has offered her more perspective on what to expect, that knowledge can be as harmful as it is helpful. "It’s helped me a lot because I feel like I’ve got a really good understanding of breast cancer and this disease," she said. "So in some ways, that’s more comforting but at the same time, I know how this can behave horribly." As Peggy explained her journey from cancer nurse to patient, much of her descriptions are loaded with medical shop talk — high-tech terms describing scientifically what her body has endured from diagnosis to the double mastectomies, to reconstruction and healing. But her journey has …
