Most of these people, many of whom are suffering from depression, feel great relief after talking with Lu, and some have kept in contact with her and have become her friends.
One of them is a woman who used to work as a cleaner at a local hotel, but who lost her job when a mastectomy left her unable to lift heavy things, such as mattresses.
Lu kept calling her and trying to find her a new job until the woman eventually landed a job as a house cleaner and the woman is now one of more than 50 people who have become friends with Lu through their shared experiences of the disease.
Chen Shin-cheh (陳訓徹), director of the Breast Surgery Department at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taipei, said the three steps to overcoming breast cancer are to know it, to face it and to defeat it.
Breast cancer has a five-year survival rate of about 85 percent, Chen said.
“Therapy of course is very important, but support from the people around the patient is also very important to help them through the whole process of treatment,” he said.
One day last month, Lu drove south to visit her family in her hometown of Jhudong (竹東) in Hsinchu County, with Tsai Li-chu in the passenger seat — the two have become good friends since their first encounter.
On the way, Tsai, who is a devoted Christian told Lu: “When I found I was suffering from cancer, I hated that God had forsaken me, but He didn’t, actually. Instead, He led me into my friendship with you, and gave me care through you.”
For Lu, her new friend’s praise is the greatest honor she can imagine.
RSS