Marla Shapiro - Life In The Balance: My Journey With Breast Cancer

Let me backtrack a little and tell you how I got here. I am Dr. Marla, fashioned to be Canadas doctor, a role I have enjoyed creating and performing. My passion has been and continues to be medicinethe science, the art, the practice. I cannot remember a time when I did not want to be a doctor. As a little girl, I identified with characters on television who were doctors. I loved people. I loved scienceit seemed a natural place for me to end up. And it is a decision that I have never regretted. So few people love what they do and who they are. I, in fact, love it all.

Both my parents lived through the Depression years. It made them who they are and determined the kinds of lessons they would teach their two daughters. The first and most important lesson was education, education, education. It was hammered into us from an early age. No one could take away your education. Strive to be the best in whatever you wanted to be. If science was your interest, then reach for the pinnacle of medicine. If language was your interest, strive to become a lawyer. There were no halfway measures in their thinking.

My sister and I are only two years apart, but we are different and diverse people. My sister was formally named Roslyn at birth, but when an older cousin could not pronounce Roslyn, she became Rozzie and then Zozzie. I have known her as Zozzie my entire life. If anyone refers to her as Roslyn, I know that person is remote and does not know her. She is Zozzie. (It is even in the name of the business she has built for herself.)

The diversity of our early years set us apart and kept us apart. My sister is creative and artistic, and though in many ways far smarter than I am, her love was for imagination and design. Mine was always geared toward academic achievement. A university graduate, and now a brilliant designer, she was underappreciated in those early years because she did not meet what I perceived as the family expectation of getting straight As. I was the star pupil, and therefore far easier for my parents to relate to. Growing up in the same house with my sister, we might as well have lived in different countries. It must have been hard going to like me in the early years. I was always the standard by which other achievements were measured. It would not be until years later that my sister and I could see each other for who we both are and forge a deep and strong relationship. Now we can joke that I cannot draw a straight line even with a ruler, while Zozzie can create anything with her imagination. Together we are complete.

My mother was a French teacher. In fact she was the one and only specialty French teacher for the upper grades in the public school my sister and I attended. My sister took the option of a teacher who could simply teach the French curriculum, rather than having my mother as a teacher. I, ever the overachiever who thought that saying no was wrong, rose to the challenge of having my mother, Madame, teach me French. She was tough on everyone but tougher on me, aware that the other kids would assume I had an inside track. It was a miserable, almost impossible situation. I couldnt wait to move on to high school.