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‘First You Cry’ Author Able to Laugh Back at Breast Cancer

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Pamela Marin is a regular contributor to Orange County Life

“I wasn’t nearly this popular when I had breasts,” quipped best-selling author and TV journalist Betty Rollin. And with that, the wry New Yorker jump-started a 20-minute talk at Le Meridien Hotel in Newport Beach about cancer that played like stand-up comedy.

Rollin is a contributing correspondent to NBC’s “Today” show and author of six books, including the 1976 best-seller “First You Cry” (made into a TV movie starring Mary Tyler Moore), an emotional account of her breast cancer and first mastectomy. Her latest book, “Last Wish,” deals with her mother’s decision to commit suicide rather than linger through a terminal illness.

Using her own experiences as a touchstone for what she called “my cheery cancer talk,” Rollin elicited a generous helping of laughter and applause as featured speaker at the Circle 1000 Founders Brunch on April 5.

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The brunch, which drew 310 well-dressed early-risers (dozens of whom arrived as much as 30 minutes before the official 9 a.m. start), was attended by members of the women’s support group for the Patty and George Hoag Cancer Center, now under construction at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach.

After breakfasting on fresh fruit, whole-grain muffins and eggs Florentine in puff pastry, guests turned their attention to the podium, where Rollin digressed and asided her way through a testimony of cancer survival that was as ironic and self-deprecating as it was hopeful and encouraging.

Pearls from the reluctant Pollyanna:

“I was misdiagnosed at first by a very nice doctor, a kind doctor, a caring doctor with the all-time great bedside manner . . .. So the cautionary note is: Nice guys aren’t always the best physicians.”

“Help make people with cancer feel brave and congratulate their bravery, particularly if they’re whiny and horrible--they’ll rise to the occasion. I think I was one of the whiny and worst. I was a garden variety Jewish Princess; nothing terrible had ever happened to me.”

“When I first had this disease I was married, but a minute later I was single. Being a single woman in New York with half your chest missing is nobody’s idea of a good situation.”

“I was extremely uncool when I started dating again. I’d have a date with someone I didn’t know at all; he’d come to the door and before I’d even offer him a drink I’d blurt, ‘I’m missing a breast!’ ”

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“I get the most wonderful letters. . . . I got (one) recently from a woman who said her dog ate her prosthesis. In my wildest dreams of making up my gross cancer jokes--and there is a place for gross cancer jokes--I would never have thought of that.”

“If you think you might croak at any minute, you’re going to pay a lot more attention to how you live. . . . The corny part of it that really resonates for me is the gratitude you feel for being alive.”

Circle 1000 founder Sandy Sewell reported that the group had raised $170,000 so far this year, more than was raised in all of 1988.

Faces in the crowd: Ginny Ueberroth, Susan Bartlett, Janet Curci Walsh, Barbara Glabman, Nora Hester, Anne Badham, Barbara Bowie, Ginny Smallwood, Nancy Baldwin and Louise Ewing (who dedicated the brunch to her late mother, Circle 1000 founder Barbara Prager, who died of cancer in March).

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