When Betty Hitchcock was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer in 1998, she wanted to talk to a woman who had been through the same experience.

Her nurse said that wouldn’t be possible.

Why? No one they had treated for the same, rare type of cancer had lived more than a year after diagnosis. At that point, inflammatory breast cancer had a 4% survival rate.

“When I heard that, my stomach sunk,” says Betty. “And then I thought, ‘Well, if there’s a 4% survival rate, that means that even one person has survived this. And if one person has survived, then I have a chance. Even if no one has survived, then I can be the first.’”

With that attitude, Betty told her doctor that she wanted to be treated aggressively. She had six months of intense chemotherapy, followed by 25 rounds of radiation, and a mastectomy. She followed up with five years of drug treatment.

The treatment, says Betty, was very hard at times. “I just kept thinking, if the treatment is making me feel this miserable, then imagine what it must be doing to those cancer cells.”

Eight years later, Betty has more than beaten her 4% survival odds. At the age of 62, she’s cancer free. She’s spending her retirement as a full-time volunteer for a variety of organizations, including CancerConnection, the Canadian Cancer Society’s nation-wide peer support program.

Whether it’s talking to newly diagnosed women or their spouses about her own experience, or trading hints like sucking on ice chips can help prevent mouth sores, or using plastic cutlery instead of silver to make food taste better to chemo patients she’s there to listen to and support anyone who needs it.

“I know that feeling of wanting to talk. When I talk to women who have just been diagnosed, and I say, ‘I’ve had this, and I’ve been here eight years,’ I can feel them nearly come through the phone they’re so relieved.”

Since Betty was diagnosed, public awareness of inflammatory breast cancer has increased and Betty has had the great pleasure of seeing women she’s supported through CancerConnection go on to become volunteers with the program. For her, that’s wonderful news.

“It means that no woman will hear that there’s no one for her to talk to.”