The Courage To Look Beyond
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Linda Morin head and shoulders

Photo: Michelle Valberg

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Survivor opens boutique to help find beauty after cancer

Reprinted with permission from Samantha Wright Allen, Ottawa Citizen
1 February, 2014

Look Beyond Mastectomy Boutique : Linda Morin Linda Morin remembers her first prosthesis fitting after her double mastectomy as an awkward ordeal.

“I’m in the dressing room with this woman who’s never gone through breast cancer,” Morin says. “I remember removing my top and she’s doing my measurements and she’s touching me.”

“Not a good feeling.”

That was in 2008.

Now, Morin is opening a combination mastectomy boutique and juicing bar as a safe space that can help ease the trauma of a lost breast.

“This is my dream,” Morin says.

“I know when a woman comes in here and I’m going to be fitting her for the first time I know exactly how to touch her, how to talk to her, how to make her feel comfortable because I’ve been there and I’ve lived it.”

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The Beauty Within

Reprinted with permission from Healing Our World magazine.
© 2012 Hippocrates Health Institute

Linda Morin head and shouldersNever had I imagined that I would hear the words “You have cancer.” I had heard the stories through my mother of how my grandmother and aunt both died of breast cancer at a very young age. Here I was, a single mother of two boys being told I had breast cancer.

Telling my family was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do and my mother’s reaction was more than any of us could take. I wished that somehow I could make it not be true, if only to take away her pain. After seeing how much pain this caused my mother, my children and my family, I knew that I needed to do whatever it took to fight this horrible disease.

I did just that! I had a double mastectomy and a total hysterectomy. It was a long and painful procedure, which took more mental healing than physical. I found myself needing to find whatever means possible to heal not only my body but also my mind. I traveled, started juicing wheatgrass, exercised more and attended Hippocrates Health Institute (HHI). This is where I discovered my ability to throw away my fear of not being accepted as a woman. I had the opportunity to show myself to a room full of people who accepted my scars and made me feel beautiful again.

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The Courage to Look Beyond

Hippocrates Health Institute: Recovery
1 June 2012

The Linda Morin Interview by Babs E. Keller

An avid runner and kick boxer, Linda was a single mom of two young boys and going through a divorce when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the young age of 45.

After complaining of bloating, fatigue, sore breasts and pains from the stomach down her back and leg. When she first went to see her gynecologist, he told her that she had cysts on her ovaries; she was in menopause and hormones were the reason why her breasts were so sore. He suggested she have a mammogram just to be sure. ?Well, Linda had been having mammograms since she was 30 because of the history of breast cancer in her family. Her grandmother died of breast cancer at the age of 62 and her aunt at the age of 38. The mammogram showed cysts in both breasts but the doctor told her that he wasn’t particularly worried about this. He did recommend that she have the cysts on her ovary removed and thankfully, it was benign.

“One day as I was lying on my back, I discovered a lump in my breast and immediately called my doctor. He said it was probably the cyst and that it had gotten a little larger because of the recent surgery. Not to worry. But the lump got bigger over the next few weeks so my doctor scheduled me for a lumpectomy. I was in the office having the stitches removed two weeks later when the results unexpectedly came in. I was more than nervous. Many things were running through my mind. My heart dropped when the doctor came in and said, “I am so sorry.” I thought I would die right there. Here I was all by myself…all I could do was think about my boys…. What would they do? Who will raise them? Then I thought of my mother….she didn’t have a clue. I hadn’t told anyone before this about the lump. They would all be devastated.”

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'I can look at myself and love me for who I am'

JUSTIN SADLER, Ottawa Sun
4 June 2010

What makes a woman a woman?

It's a question Ottawa resident Linda Morin has struggled with for the last few years.

For her, it's not her breasts. She lost hers three years ago.

It's not a uterus or the ability to have children. She lost those things, too.

It's not her womanly figure. She lost the power to look at her body in the mirror.

"I thought I was the ugliest, most disgusting thing anybody could ever look at. My womanhood was gone," she says. "It was horrible, horrible to look at."

So what makes a woman a woman? For Linda Morin - a mother, a daughter, a sister - the answer has become somewhat enigmatic since she was stripped of what many might say makes her a woman. The cancer survivor hasn't felt very womanly in a long time. Hers is a story like countless others who've had the tests, heard the bad news, and either fought to live - or died trying. Saturday, she and many others will be top of mind for thousands of people expected to participate in Ottawa's fifth annual Weekend to End Women's Cancers. The 60-km walk raised $2.1 million last year for cancer research.

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