Marsha Hunt (singer and Novelist) - Battle With Cancer

Battle With Cancer

In late 2004, Hunt was diagnosed with breast cancer and told to have surgery to remove her right breast and her lymph nodes. Hunt postponed seeking treatment for five months, later wondering if she would have faced first stage rather than third stage cancer had she not. When she chose to have surgery, she decided to have it done in Ireland, because she felt that the Irish are more supportive and comfortable with illness whereas in the USA her treatment would be impersonal. Hunt decided to have a complete mastectomy with no following reconstruction. She says, "Reconstruction – as if the breast is miraculously put back to the way it was. In fact, pretty much all you get is your cleavage back; you don't get any feeling or sensitivity.... They take muscles from your back, skin from your thighs, fat from your stomach. You had a breast removed, but the rest of you was fine. Now half your body is hacked about – and for what?" The day of her operation Hunt wrote a note on her breast to the surgical team, telling them to have fun, make sure they took the right breast off and drew them a flower.

Once the operation was over Hunt says she did not mourn the loss of her breast, but felt happiness that the cancer had been removed. She emphasizes positive action and states that the surgery left her a "battle scar" that makes her feel sexier, as it is a memento of what she has survived. In July 2007, Hunt got to talking about her breast removal with a twelve year old boy and told the boy that now she is like the Amazons of old who would have a breast removed so that when they went into battle they could use their bow without their breast getting in the way when they let their arrows fly.

After her mastectomy, she contracted the superbug MRSA and had to be treated with Zyrox. She also had chemotherapy. Not wanting to wait for her hair to fall out naturally, she decided to control it herself, throwing a party where her guests took turns cutting off locks of her hair.

The Irish Independent reported on August 27, 2008 that Hunt stood on a table at the opening of the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin to let everyone see that she had survived third-stage breast cancer after a treatment of chemotherapy, radiation and Herceptin therapy at the hospital.