MOOSE JAW — It was July 2021 and Tammy Gunn was towelling off after her shower when she felt an unusual lump in her right breast and realized something was wrong.
“It felt like broken glass,” she said, which she also wondered whether she had somehow “broken” her breast.
Thus began a journey of doctors’ visits, a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy sessions that ended in February 2023.
This adventure also led Gunn — a former Moose Javian who has lived in Toronto for almost 20 years as a Zumba fitness instructor — to write “Dancing Through Diagnosis: Navigating Breast Cancer, the good, bad and surprisingly funny.”
Gunn explained that after finding the lump in July 2021, it was in mid-August — this was the middle of the coronavirus pandemic — when she was had an ultrasound and biopsy at the hospital. At age 44, this was also her first mammogram.
A day later, a nurse practitioner confirmed that Gunn had cancer that was aggressive and had metastasized. She then met with an oncologist and the team that would support her. Beginning that September, she started chemotherapy, then had a double mastectomy, and then had radiation.
Gunn was scared when she discovered her lump, while she was terrified after the doctors officially diagnosed it as cancer. Moreover, it was unexpected because she had worked in the fitness industry for 15 years and looked after herself.
One thing that kept her mentally steady during her treatments was that she could still teach Zumba classes online, which protected her immune system. She also listened to podcasts that helped manage her emotions — especially knowing that her cancer was metastatic and possibly elsewhere in her body.
Not everyone can work while receiving cancer treatments, while governments don’t cover every drug, Gunn said. She took a drug that cost $1,800 every two weeks, but the hospital helped her find a benefits plan to pay for it.
“I have a great husband to support me, but it’s not an easy thing to go through,” she said.
She also credited Liz, “a wonderful nurse,” with supporting her during her entire cancer journey. This was important since the pandemic prevented her husband, family, or friends from attending her treatments.
After the double mastectomy, Gunn learned that she also had HER2-positive breast cancer, which is driven by estrogen in her body. She compared it to a photocopier stuck on copy and continuing to create cancer cells.
So, after her cancer treatments finished in March 2022, she spent 1.5 years taking 17 sessions of immunotherapy to eliminate this problem.
“Typically, it would be found during the biopsy, but for whatever reason, I got to be the special one, and it wasn’t found until after,” Gunn, 47, chuckled.
One side effect of the double mastectomy is that surgeons removed the lymph nodes in her right arm, so she must wear a compression sleeve and have massages to clear out built-up toxins. Moreover, the cancer could still return; doctors said she must remain in remission for five years before she can declare victory.
Gunn is almost two years cancer-free, but she already feels that she has beaten the disease.
“I feel very powerful about that. That’s what gets me up every day,” she said.
Writing “Dancing through Diagnosis” was a cathartic experience for Gunn, who wanted to make people who are facing similar diagnoses or going through similar treatments feel powerful.
Gunn, now 47, attended Central Collegiate when she lived in Moose Jaw and credited Robert (Bob) Currie, her creative writing teacher, for instilling in her a love of writing.
After being diagnosed in 2021, she began journalling because she needed to put her thoughts on paper, or she thought she would die. She shared some of those writings with family and friends, who encouraged her to write a book.
“I like to write with a sense of humour because cancer is a very heavy topic, so I wrote it like I was talking to my best friend,” she said.
Gunn finished writing her book in January 2024 and published it in July, where it landed on several bestseller lists on Amazon. The front cover shows her tattoo-covered chest from the side, which symbolizes that she has been “born again” and has “risen from the ashes.”
She is also “delighted and surprised” with how the book turned out, while she has received positive feedback from people going through or supporting those with cancer.
