by Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Oct 24/97) - Part of being a breast cancer survivor is becoming a resource for others diagnosed with the disease.

This weekend, Dawn Enns will be among a group of breast cancer survivors at a Canadian Cancer Society seminar in Edmonton called Reach to Recovery.

"It's part of the healing process," she said. "I am going to make myself available, to talk to people diagnosed with breast cancer."

This year she also became involved with the Run for the Cure in Yellowknife. Proceeds from the run -- over $91,000 from Yellowknife -- will go to a new mammography machine at Stanton Regional Hospital. Most of the needed $150,000 has been raised.

Enns' decision to help others facing the disease comes a year after completing chemotherapy treatments.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer last summer, two and a half years after finding a marble-sized lump in one of her breasts.

Soon before finding the lump, she experienced a burning sensation in one of her breasts which became very painful and lasted for several weeks.

She sought medical advice but an ultrasound showed no irregularities.

Two mammograms in as many years still did not show the lump.

"It is important to note that in most cases a mammogram will detect breast cancer, my case was an exception," she said.

Last June, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which had spread, or metastasized, to her liver and spleen. Once any type of cancer spreads to another part of the body, it is extremely difficult to beat.

She was told, without treatment, she would be dead in a year.

"This sent me reeling emotionally," she said. "I rushed around and visited as many friends as I could. I thought I was going to die."

During a very aggressive treatment program, Enns went to the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, where her Yellowknife diagnosis was confirmed, her case became puzzling, specifically the how the metastasis could have been misdiagnosed.

Before becoming a survivor, Enns would first have to undergo the physical and emotional pain of cancer treatments.

"Chemotherapy was no picnic, losing my hair was the least bothersome side effect," she said.

She also underwent radiation treatment which she called a "breeze" compared to chemotherapy. "I still experience some pain and fatigue from the drugs that saved my life but I am lucky."

Over the past 10 years, an average of two or three women die of breast cancer each year in the North, according to NWT medical health officer Andre Corriveau.

Over the past five years, there have been about 10 new cases diagnosed in the North each year, he said.

Breast cancer is more prevalent among the North's Caucasian population but data is suggesting incidence is rising among Inuit, Corriveau added.