Nancy Bellen Santa Rosa, California United States Amazon Heart Thunder United States 2006 Rider

While riding with the Amazon Hearts Thunder team in September, I will celebrate the 10-year anniversary since my diagnosis of breast cancer!

I was 32 years old when I was diagnosed. I was 8 weeks pregnant, with a 3 year-old son at home. The story goes like this: the cancer was hormonally-fed and growing very fast.  I terminated my pregnancy, and the tumor size shrank overnight. Two days later I started neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. After only 2 of the 4 rounds I would receive, the tumor was no longer palpable.

I had a sentinel node biopsy and a lumpectomy followed by radiation, tamoxifen and some very good luck. I am now 42, my son is a strapping 13-year-old, and I am healthy.

One of my first acts after treatment was learning to ride a motorcycle. I wanted a big fear that I had control over. I choose a shiny black Honda Magna 750. I only rode the Magna for about 5 months before I sold the bike. Ultimately I decided that other drivers had a lot more control over my safety than I felt comfortable with, and I gave up riding.

When I first heard about the Amazon Hearts Thunder Ride, through the Young Survival Coalition last fall, it called out to me. Primarily because I love speed and power (what girl doesn’t?) and Harley Davidson’s generously providing the bikes was a big draw. Also, the ride falls exactly during the week of the 10-year anniversary of my diagnosis. Being on a bike with bugs in my teeth and having conversations with the media about young survivors seems like the exact right place to be.

Over the past 10 years I have spent a lot of time as a breast cancer advocate; I have climbed Mt. Fuji on the Climb Against The Odds 2000 team, hiked the Wind River Range in Wyoming, whitewater rafted down the main arm of the Salmon River in Idaho and Biked Against The Odds in Healdsburg, CA, all with The Breast Cancer Fund. I have also bicycled down the Oregon Coast with The Breast Cancer Renewal Project. I am the Chairperson of the Community Advisory Council for the Sutter Breast Care Center in Santa Rosa; it is a center I helped to create.

I was lucky to be one of the artists included in the International exhibition of Art.Rage.Us, Art and Writing by Women with Breast Cancer, sponsored by the The Susan G. Komen Foundation, The American Cancer Society, and The Breast Cancer Fund. In 2004 I was a featured breast cancer artist at the London exhibition of Lilly: Oncology On Canvas. I have written humorous cancer stories called the Lemonade Chronicles and read them before several large Survivor audiences, and produced a short film about my experience with diagnosis and treatment called My Third Minute (every 3 minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer).

Now that I have been selected to the team, I am riding nearly every day and loving it. I am glad for this opportunity to re-examine my fear after all these years; it turns out it was scarier to NOT ride. Go figure.

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