PAYING IT FORWARD: Two-time breast cancer survivor Doris Taylor
(pictured at left, and above with her family) spends her days supporting
other people fi ghting breast cancer.
Photos courtesy of Doris Taylor
Caribbean Life, OCTOBER 15-21, 2021 23
Health
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
East New York native Doris
Taylor was fi rst diagnosed
with breast cancer 14 years
ago, in 2007, but it wasn’t her
fi rst brush with the disease.
“I was in a panic mode because
my grandmother passed
of breast cancer,” she said.
“And I recall her saying, ‘If
you ever feel a lump in your
breast, if you ever feel, like, a
sticking pain, or any type of
discomfort, go get help right
away.’”
“Because of my grandmother
passing, I thought it
was the end of my life.”
Then 47, Taylor was the
mother of two daughters —
one who was just starting the
sixth grade and one just entering
college — and loved her
job at the city’s Administration
for Children’s Services,
where she’d been working
since 1988.
“I went through all of my
personal things, and things
that I did not want people to
know about me, I shredded,”
she said. “And all of my clothes
and stuff — I gave away all of
my clothes.”
She had her niece drive to
her home and started loading
the car with her clothes and
belongings.
“And then I thought about
it, and I said, ‘You know what,
I’m getting rid of the old, and
we’re going to bring me back
the new. It’s going to be a new
me.’ A new step, a new walk,
along with a new talk. And
encourage myself, ‘You could
live, and you’re going to live.”
Taylor left work and started
treatment – chemotherapy, followed
by a single mastectomy.
By 2009, Taylor was in remission,
had had reconstructive
surgery, and went back to
work, where she became a supervisor.
“In 2016, I had an abnormal
mammogram, they sent me
for a sonogram, with the sonogram,
they saw some spots
that didn’t look correct,” she
said. “Two days later, because
of my history, they immediately
did a biopsy. And the
biopsy determined that
I was positive again.
And I was very devastated.”
She called a supporter
she’d met, a
breast cancer
su r vivor
who was
there to
lend a hand
to people
going through diagnosis
and treatment,
and she told
Taylor to come over
right away.
“When I left her
house, I felt brand
new,” Taylor said.
“I felt brand new because
she, too, was a
double, she had had
both of her breasts
removed at different
stages in her
life. I was like, lord,
I can live, I can live
through this. And
that’s when I became a fi ghter,
I just knew I was going to beat
this.”
She started treatment with
the same oncologist and surgeons
— something she was
grateful for because she was
comfortable with them, and
they knew her well. Treatment,
though, was more diffi -
cult physically and mentally.
She had spent the last seven
years celebrating the fact that
she had survived breast cancer,
only to be thrown back
into the fi ght.
“I think it was more of a
reality this time, the second
time around,” she said. “Because
the fi rst time was unexpected.
But the second time,
I felt everything, I felt everything.
I was not prepared.”
The physical side effects
were more numerous and
more intense.
“My joints became so weak
that I could be walking and I
would just fall,” she said. “As
a result from all of that, I was
forced to retire.”
Helping children and trying
to keep families together
was something she loved to
do, and she’d been doing it for
a long time. When she got sick
the second time, she moved
from front-line work to the intake
department until her doctors
put her on permanent disability.
“It was like, part of my
world is being taken away
from me. The thing I love to
do, now I can’t do it anymore,”
she said. “Helping children,
helping families. But I took
on something else, and what
I took on was helping other
breast cancer patients that
have been diagnosed.”
Taylor felt brand new that
day she walked out of her
friend’s house and now she returns
the favor, taking calls
and visits at all hours from
people who need support.
“They call me, and I talk to
them, just as someone talked
to me and held my hand,” she
said. “One of the girls, she’s 22
years old. That’s my baby.”
That woman came to Taylor
feeling scared after doctors
recommended she get a
mastectomy. Taylor couldn’t
tell her what to do, she said,
but could give her some encouragement.
“At the end of the day, the
same person that has the surgery
is the same person who’s
coming out,” she said. “I said,
‘Take a look in the mirror, look
at yourself, you’re not going to
change. The only thing you’re
going to do is live. You’re going
to do everything you’ve got to
do to live.”
The cancer itself hasn’t
been the most diffi cult part
of the last year. When COVID
began sweeping the city in
2020, Taylor skipped some of
her doctor visits, scared she
might pick the virus up from
other patients. Aware that
her immune system was compromised,
she was furiously
cleaning the house and spraying
her daughter down with
Lysol when she came home
each day.
And two of the people
who had supported her most
passed away — the longtime
leader of her church, Bishop
Roberto J. Jemmott, and her
sister-in-law, Linda. Back in
2007, Linda came over on the
day Doris’ husband was going
to shave her head.
“She had dreadlocks all the
way to her back, and she came
home, and she sat in the chair
before I did, and she told my
husband ‘shave me fi rst,’ and
she shaved her hair off fi rst,”
she said. “And she moved into
my house and she kept me until
I was well.”
“Back in my fi rst treatment,
I’m looking at the gate and she’s
coming through the gate with a
suitcase,” Taylor recalled. “I
said ‘where are you going?’ and
she said ‘I’m here to take care
of you. And she stayed with me
until I got well.”
Taylor is most of the way
through her fi ve-year daily
treatment plan, and she may
be starting on another fi ve
years when she’s done. The
pills aren’t as harsh as her
fi rst round of treatment, she
said. Her hair is thinner and
she has the beginnings of osteoporosis,
a side effect of the
drugs, and she’s in some pain
as a result. Her doctors told
her recently she may need another
round of the fi ve-year
drugs once she’s fi nished with
the fi rst.
Since 2007, Taylor has been
involved with fundraising for
breast cancer research, taking
to the Coney Island boardwalk
each year with Making
Strides Against Breast Cancer
and becoming a Pace Setter
after she raised more than
$3,000 in a single year.
“People are still getting diagnosed,”
she said “I’m hoping
and praying that one day,
they will just get that cure, all
you will need is probably one
tablet and, OK, boom.”
Two-time breast
cancer survivor
doles out support