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Morin had four surgeries to remove both breasts and her uterus, all in the span of 18 months, and she went into a deep depression after her operation.

“I thought I was the most disgusting thing you could ever see,” Morin says.

The “Looking Beyond Boutique Wellness Centre and Juice Bar” name was inspired by Morin’s book, The Courage to Look Beyond. The memoir details the 51-year-old’s battle with cancer and her journey to wellness in body and mind.

The Kanata studio has been open for two weeks, with a grand opening planned for the end of February. It’s been a quick process — Morin found the room on the top floor of The Spa Day Retreat in September. But when she saw it had a kitchen, she decided she could pair the mastectomy studio with her other passion — making healthy drinks.

Morin stands behind a long wooden table in the open concept kitchen. Above her, a list of fresh juices and smoothies. There’s Mint Foam, Green Juice or the Calm Chamomile Banana. Behind her, a food processor, its mouth a bright green from blended wheat grass, the magic ingredient Morin swears by. She says two ounces of wheat grass is equal to five pounds of vegetables and she drank six ounces a day in the three weeks leading up to her hysterectomy.

“I’m one-of-a-kind over here,” Morin says of her store. “You feel like you’re in someone’s kitchen, you feel comfortable.”

“Very cosy,” chimes in one of several customers, who sit and listen to Morin share her story.

In the corner sits a glass display case with different types of breast prostheses — one made of a synthetic plastic, another of fabric, with bean filling. And on top, creams for women undergoing radiation. The boutique has several rooms, one with a giant couch and another with clothing racks where specialty bras, bathing suits and undershirts hang.

Morin also wants to design a clothing line of bathing suits and lingerie that have a built-in cup, which she says is a gap in the market.

She said it’s important for women to speak about taboo subjects like body image and sex after cancer.

“These are topics we never, never talk about, we’re ashamed to talk about and it’s something that needs to be heard.”

Now she thinks differently about her body and femininity.

“It’s about feeling good in your own skin,” says Morin, her voice as strong as her words.

Morin says her studio is a place where women are meant to relax and feel comfortable. But it isn’t just for cancer survivors. Morin is planning a number of classes including a weekly healing circle, yoga, and juicing lessons. In the next two weeks she’ll bring in a guest speaker to discuss anxiety and depression, “I want to do it all,” Morin says with a laugh.

On Tuesday, World Cancer Day, Morin says she will focus on the positive.

“I try not to think of that dark side. For me it was very, very dark. What I do is, I thank for what I have now,” she says, the juice blender whirring in the background.

“How can I be upset with cancer, when cancer’s changed my life completely? This is what I’m meant to do.”

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I wrote an article last year for Healing Our World magazine (“The Courage to Look Beyond,” Volume 30/Issue 2). The article was about the acceptance I received and the power I felt because of it. I became a new woman! I was stronger and in a position to help other women find their empowerment. I am proud to say that I am a cancer survivor. Being a woman is not about having breasts; it is about overcoming adversity and being stronger for it. It’s about being comfortable in your own skin, no matter how difficult it might sometimes be. I appreciate life. I live life every single day. I love the person I’ve become. That is why I am writing a book to help women like me to come to terms with their loss and feel better about the way they look. I am also working on a line of clothing designed for women who have undergone mastectomies.

I have now accepted that I’ve had breast cancer. I’ve also accepted that I do not have breasts. I can look at myself and love me for who I am. I decided I wanted to go back to Hippocrates to finish my book. I knew that returning to HHI would be amazing and I promised myself I would go back every year. I was talking to so many wonderful women and a lot of them were telling me they had a difficult time accepting themselves.

One morning, Dr. Brian Clement was doing a lecture. Before he started, I asked him if I could make an announcement and told him what I wanted to say. I went up to the front and asked all the women to come and join me the next afternoon on the roof of the Hacienda (a space reserved for women who wish to sunbathe topless). I suggested we all go topless. I wanted them all to feel the way I felt?—?to love themselves. We are all different shapes and sizes. Some women have large breasts, others have small ones and some have scars. I wanted them all to feel a sense of freedom and be born again.

I told them they do not need to hide any more and could all be proud of who they are. Their reaction was not what I had hoped for. Most of the women said they could not do it. I told them I would be there at two o’clock the next afternoon in case they changed their minds. I really wanted the women to experience this and I was disappointed that my plan was not going to work.

The following day I went up on the roof very depressed. But to my surprise, there were already two women there. And then more started coming. I was so happy and amazed by how many women awakened! We all gathered in a circle, said a little about ourselves and then I asked the women, “Are we ready to remove our tops?” They all said yes, and did. We held hands one more time.

I asked them how they felt and for some it was very emotional. It was an experience that will always stay with me. I asked them afterwards if I could get a photograph since I’d decided to write an article about this experience. The women all said yes. We ran topless to one of HHI’s waterfalls and we all felt a sense of freedom. Will, HHI’s photographer, was there waiting for us and it did not bother the women that he is a man. All the ladies were laughing and giggling. We were there for about an hour. Some people walked by but we did not notice as we were free and alive and that was all that mattered.

I hope through my article that I will somehow help all those who have been touched by cancer. More than this, I want to touch and affect the lives of all women and those who love them. This is our time to find power! The time has come for us to know who we are and love ourselves regardless of our physical appearance, regardless of our social standing, regardless of what we have been told to think and feel about ourselves.

I am available for speaking engagements of all kinds. I also invite you to contact me via email at lindavscancer@gmail.com. With much love, I send my best regards and hope to hear from you.

I would like to thank all the beautiful women (pictured above) who allowed me to share this amazing experience with them. It will always be in my heart.

God bless the beauty within.

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Linda then started researching breast cancer on the Internet and that scared her even more. Her family was very supportive and tried to help her investigate her options. Finally, a friend told her that he knew someone who had breast cancer that had spread to her bones. She went to some ‘Alternative Health’ institute in Florida and ?he suggested that she speak with her. She did…and it turned out to be Hippocrates Health Institute. This gave Linda some comfort but she was still leaning towards having surgery. Her doctors were recommending different options. One suggested removing the lumps. Another suggested that she remove one breast, and yet another recommended that she should have both breasts removed possibly followed by six months of chemotherapy! Linda ended up having a double mastectomy. Her doctor informed her that the surgery was ?a success. They got all of the cancer, there was no cancer in her lymph nodes, and she did not have to go through chemotherapy. Linda felt so relieved and knew in her heart that she had made the right decision. If she had the one breast removed, she felt sure that she would have had to go through the chemotherapy treatment and she would have ?to live the next few years wondering if she was going to get cancer in her next breast.

“It was amazing,” Linda said that within five days after she got home from the hospital, she felt so good. She started juicing and was soon exercising again. Linda learned about lymphatic massage and exercise and began doing it every day, knowing that if she didn’t, she could get lymph edema. She felt that she was on the road to recovery!

About a year later, Linda started having stomach pains again – more cysts on her ovaries and they were bursting. She couldn’t walk. She couldn’t breathe. She had too many white blood cells, blood in her urine and kept having irregular pap tests. Her doctor advised her to get a full abdominal hysterectomy, and surgery was booked for December 15th. Then someone told her about the healing benefits of wheatgrass and Linda started doing 6 ounces a day (2 ounces 3 times a day) for a full 3 weeks. Four days before the surgery they tested her again, and her white blood cell count was normal, no more blood in the urine and her pap test was also normal. Her surgeon was amazed and asked her what she had been doing. When Linda told her that she had been drinking wheatgrass, her doctor told her to keep it up….but still recommended she have the surgery, which she did.

Now it is a year later again…and Linda recently spent three weeks at Hippocrates absorbing an immense amount of information from their three week Life Change Program. ?Her most liberating experience at Hippocrates was when she was in a group of 75 people during a lecture, and there was a doctor speaking about lymphatic massage. Linda shyly raised her hand to ask a question… “My chest is swollen and my arm is sore…what can I do for this?” Linda felt such shame and embarrassment about having had the mascectomy that she didn’t want to look at herself. The doctor asked her if she would mind taking off her shirt in front of everyone. She will always remember that incredible moment. She did not think she had the courage, but suddenly she asked everyone if they were ready. A hush fell over the room. She could hear her own heart pounding.

“I took my top off…in front of everyone…when I had thought that it was the most disgusting thing that anybody could ever see because that is what I saw in my eyes…that I was disgusting.” But Linda was stunned to see the faces of those watching…stunned to see their reaction. The whole room was silent, but the looks on their faces were not that of disgust. They appeared supportive and honored. Afterwards everyone approached her with loving support and told her how beautiful she was. Linda felt beautiful again! And as the doctor massaged her stomach, liver and her chest and everyone watched as they saw him moving her lymph nodes. The swelling went away and so did the pain.

She says this whole experience completely changed her life forever. She needed this to happen. How long had she felt unhappy and angry? She was mad at the world. She had even questioned why she was going to Hippocrates Health Institute…what was the point? She was breastless and nothing would change that!

It is very clear to Linda now. She was meant to have this experience. She is meant to help other women going through the same experience realize there is no need for shame…they will not be loved any less because they do not have breasts. It is okay…. “We don’t need to have reconstructive surgery. We can and must accept that we made this choice. We must be strong. We must have courage. We don’t have to put ourselves through any more pain. In society, women are loved for their breasts—the bigger the better and if they aren’t large enough, they have implants put in! This makes it especially hard for those women who had no choice but to go through such radical surgery.

Linda knows now that she must teach women how to love themselves for who they are. She now looks at her cancer as a gift! She beat cancer….it did not beat her. She has more energy ever and feels half her age, biking and roller-blading sometimes three to four hours a day. She is sure to do her chest exercises every day and wants to help educate other women about lymph edema and how very important these lymphatic massages are.

“I know now that when people look at me, they look at me because of me…and not my breasts.” She no longer feels embarrassed about losing her breasts and wants women to know that there is no need to feel ashamed. It is okay! She knows she is a beautiful woman. “Having cancer has taught me so much. It has made me appreciate life and want to help other people. It has made me a better person.”

Hippocrates Health Institute - Recovery: Vol 30 Issue 2 Page 26

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Diagnosed at 45, Morin had a decision: Do everything possible to live or do nothing at all and die. With two sons and a loving family, there wasn't much choice. "Momma's fighting this as much as she can and we're going to do it together," she recalls telling her sons, Gael and Eric, nine and 16 at the time, respectively. "We haven't had an easy two-and-a-half years."

An avid runner and cardio kickboxer at the time, she was used to the usual aches and pains of exercising. The pain she felt that morning in June 2007 was something different. "My breasts were extremely, extremely sore," says Morin, now 48, sitting in a coffee shop in Ottawa's Little Italy neighbourhood recently.

Her doctor told her the pain was common among women her age and suggested it was the early symptoms of menopause. But soon the pain spread to her abdomen and back and she found a lump in her breast. She'd been going for annual mammograms because her grandmother died of breast cancer at 62, as did her aunt at the age of 38. On July 24, 2007, after a lumpectomy to remove the mass, she got the news. "I'm so, so sorry," her doctor told her. "I just asked him how bad is it and he says 'you have ductal carcinoma, grade three of grade three.' And then I just started crying."

She had three tumours deep inside ducts and lobules, parts of the breast that make and secrete milk during breastfeeding. Also in the middle of a divorce and with two young boys, Morin dreaded what she thought was the inevitable outcome. "Immediately you think of death. What am I going to do?"

Gathering her family together, Morin broke the difficult news to them. "It's not something I wish on anybody," she says quietly, tears welling in her eyes. "My boys were both shocked." But there was little time to deal with the torrent of emotions. The following week, Aug. 10, she underwent a double-mastectomy to have both her breasts removed. "These dates will stay with me until the day I die. I'll never forget that day."

After her double mastectomy, she had a hysterectomy to remove her uterus after several cysts were discovered on her ovaries. For months she suffered through her recovery, much of it with unbearable physical pain. She struggled much longer emotionally. "I remember being all bandaged up and touching my chest and there was nothing there," she says, adding the ensuing years were the most difficult of her life. "I spent two years being ashamed of myself. I never felt like a woman. I've always felt like a woman and when that is taken away from you, your self-esteem is so low."

Almost three years and four surgeries later, one might forgive Morin for looking tired, even drained. Except she doesn't. Instead, she radiates energy. It's partly because she's got a new outlook on life after deciding to forgo reconstructive breast surgery, a process that would require several painful surgeries to harvest tissue from her abdomen and thighs to form new breasts. The decision came during a pivotal evening at a three-week health program in Florida last February. Revealing her scars to a specialized doctor in front of a large audience at the Hippocrates Health Institute, the event marked a turning point for her outlook on life. "Once I removed my top ... and I saw everybody's reaction it was such a relief. I could breathe. I could be free. Something was lifted, like I was new, I was born again. I was free. I don't have to hide any more. I'm proud to say that I am a cancer survivor."

Being a woman is not about having breasts, she says. It's about overcoming adversity and being stronger for it. It's about being comfortable in your own skin, no matter how difficult it might be sometimes, she says. "I appreciate life. I live life every single day for today. I love the person I've become."

That's why she's eager to tell her story. She's working on a book to help women like her come to terms with their loss and feel better about the way they look. She's also working to develop a fashion line designed for women who've undergone mastectomies. She no longer feels embarrassed. Rather, she is feeling more confident and womanly than ever. She's empowered. "I want women to be proud of who they are without breasts. Right now, I am no less of a woman than a woman that has breasts. "Now I've accepted that I've had breast cancer. I've accepted that I don't have breasts. I can look at myself and love me for who I am."

justin.sadler@sunmedia.ca