Vicki Biggs-Anderson used to dread doing monthly self-breast exams. She’d had several breast cancer scares with non-cancerous cysts, but in October 2006 she found a lump that felt different.

“There was an immediacy about getting to the doctor that I hadn’t felt before,” she said.

At the doctor’s, Biggs-Anderson’s half-dollar sized lump and another lump hidden behind the first, were determined cancer cells. She underwent a mastectomy at the Mayo Clinic and a month later began a year of chemotherapy.

“People need to know with a cancer diagnosis the most important thing to do is what they feel like doing,” said Biggs-Anderson. “It’s hard enough to deal with without bucking your instincts or trying to please someone else’s notion of what’s best.”

For Biggs-Anderson doing what she felt like meant spending the time when she wasn’t traveling to Duluth for chemotherapy at her home, knitting and developing a passion for football.

Through her recovery, Biggs-Anderson said she appreciated friends’ offers of rides to chemotherapy and with her husband Paul accompanying her to all but one of her chemo infusions, she found support in her family and the encouraging words of her oncologist. Through friends and a series of writings about her breast cancer in her weekly column for the Cook County News-Herald, Biggs-Anderson was able to speak with several breast cancer survivors whose words of experience helped quell fears, she said.

“I would encourage women to share the fact that they have cancer and have them ask people ‘do you know anyone who’s gone through this,’” Biggs-Anderson said.

Now more than three years after the experience, Biggs-Anderson’s hair has grown back with a wave, although her toes remain numb from the chemotherapy. She said one of the most important things to remember is that a cancer diagnosis doesn’t change the person you are.

“You’re not somebody else all of sudden,” said Biggs-Anderson. “You’re not going to drop dead from fear.”

The Cook County North Shore Hospital provides mammograms which look for tumors or other potential breast cancer indicators such as microcalcifications. If a mammogram reveals abnormalities, patients are sent to Duluth for a diagnostic mammogram and biopsies. The North Shore Hospital can administer some chemotherapy infusions, but most cancer treatment requires travel outside the county.

In 2007, 1010 Interiors began the North Shore Travel Fund for Cancer Treatment. Managed by the North Shore Health Care Foundation, the Travel Fund is supported by several area businesses, organizations and individuals and provides local cancer patients with a $200 check to help with travel expenses.

“All that’s required is a voucher from the clinic signed by a doctor or nurse confirming the diagnosis and requesting the support,” said NSHCF Executive Director Karl Hansen.

Biggs-Anderson said local cancer patients shouldn’t be afraid to ask for any sort of assistance.

“If a person needed a ride to chemotherapy, all they would need to do is place an ad on Boreal and I guarantee a group of people would volunteer to take them,” she said. “When you learn someone has cancer there’s very little you can do besides be supportive. It’s a gift when you can help.”