Regina Brett Quotes

I'm happy to tell you that having been through surgery and chemotherapy and radiation, breast cancer is officially behind me. I feel absolutely great and I am raring to go.

I had a mastectomy in 1998, and then chemo.

I didn't have chemo.

I've had two cancer bouts in my years on the Court, and the first one, Justice O'Connor told me, 'Now, you do the chemotherapy on Friday because you'll get over it during the weekend and you can be back in court on Monday.'

My mother is a two-time cancer survivor.

Breast cancer is being detected at an earlier, more treatable stage these days, largely because women are taking more preventive measures, like self-exams and regular mammograms. And treatment is getting better too.

I had a lumpectomy. It wasn't that bad. Six and a half weeks of radiation.

The cancer I had is not at all equal to other people's cancer. I've never had to have chemotherapy; I haven't had to have a mastectomy.

Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.

I had prostate cancer. It was rather painful and, in many ways, life-changing.

Cancer really stinks.

You know, chemo and radiation is a very tough customer. It does so much good, but it also does a lot of damage.

I had a PET scan, and it was cleared. Not one cell of cancer after three rounds of chemo. But I still had seven more just for safety, which was stupid. I should have just worked on therapy.

I've had every chemo in the alphabet, most of them more than once. Some of them that aren't even in the alphabet, they're just numbers - clinical trials. But I bet if you added all those up, it would have to be like 60- or 70-something. I've had 23 bone marrow aspirations. Having one isn't fun and I've had 23. So that's been tough.

It's a scary word, 'cancer.'

I couldn't possibly lead the kind of life I lead, and keep the schedule that I do, having radiation or chemotherapy.

I think the way we think about cancer, the way we treat cancer, has dramatically changed in the last century. There is an enormous amount of options that a physician can provide today, right down from curing patients, treating patients or providing patients with psychic solace or pain relief.

I recommend a little dose of cancer to anyone.

I'm not sure anyone goes through a cancer scare unchanged. I know it changed me in so many ways. But I was fortunate to have had a rare cancer that's slow-growing and one that allowed me to skip the chemical cocktails that would have put me into early menopause.

I go for my completely routine mammogram and then I get a call from my gynecologist. And she says, 'Well, I have some - it's not such great news, but here it is, but it's very small and we're just going to get in there and take it right out, right away, and then you'll probably have radiation.'

Until you expose the cancer, you can't fix it.

The thing with cancer is that it's usually the chemo rather than the disease itself that makes the patient feel so ill, particularly at the start.

I beat a brain tumor.

It was a fine cancer experience, as cancer experiences go.

I had throat cancer, and I had to have radiation treatments, and I couldn't sing for a long time; and this was in '97. I had 28 radiation treatments. I didn't die, thank God.