‘ … he prescribed diet, meditation, acupuncture and Chinese pills … I felt extremely confident and comfortable about his advice. I bounced back well from chemo and had hardly any burns from the radiation. I am convinced his different approach really helped me get through more easily.’
As the Managing Director of Apple Australia, Diana Ryall was a busy energetic woman who commanded admiration and respect. She’d been with the company for 18 years and had held the CEO position for four years after literally working her way to the top of the company.
Her days were long, filled with important meetings and decisionmaking. In October 2000 she was still busy with meetings and decisions, only this time they concerned not the growth and development of a huge corporation but the continuation of her own life.
After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, Di maintained her Chief Executive position with Apple, but could only work in a part-time capacity during her treatment.
‘My prognosis wasn’t great, so I decided that I must do everything I could to stay alive. I also set myself a goal of reducing the likelihood of the cancer returning in two years.
‘Life at Apple was relentless and demanding. I decided at the end of my medical treatments for cancer that I would either need to get fully back into the high-stress job of CEO again or take the decision to step down. I also knew that, at that time, my overwhelming first priority was to remove all significant stress in my life. So I stepped down from my job at the end of 2001. I knew that people would understand.
Support from Di’s corporate colleagues
‘Too often, managers stay on longer than they should. I always knew I wasn’t going to stay in the position for ever, and this seemed like the right time for me—especially as I felt that others would appreciate that my concerns for my health and wellbeing came first,’ Di says.
‘Once it was confirmed that I had breast cancer, I was very open about my diagnosis. I sent a group email to everyone at Apple so that they all knew. That gave the staff permission to be open and frank and also, by being candid, people were prepared to talk to me about the disease. A media release was sent out so my diagnosis was out in the public arena. Everyone was very supportive,’ she adds.
Di and I meet in a quaint coffee shop to talk about her journey. Casually dressed and very relaxed, she explains that it was a hard decision to make—but the right one.
‘I know I made the best decision for me. All the medical fraternity acknowledge that lack of exercise and excess weight are not conducive to good health and when I was working long hours at Apple, those factors were difficult to control. What researchers haven’t yet identified is what impact stress does have on our bodies. I have no doubt my decision to forego corporate life for a healthier, less stressful existence is the reason we are here chatting today.’
After her treatment, Di was very focused on doing everything in her power to survive the next two years cancer-free and then to keep living every year after that, one at a time. As a high-level executive, Di was used to setting goals and being focused on achieving milestones. She was also going to use—and need—every bit of her professional acumen in her approach to beating cancer.
‘One of the things that shattered me with my diagnosis was that I might not see my grandchildren, let alone be there when they were growing up. But I have realised that goal with the birth of my little granddaughter and more recently my first grandson, so that is a blessing. I have also reached 60 and that was another important landmark for me. Now I am determined to keep setting these markers for the future.
‘Before I was diagnosed I knew quite a bit about breast cancer as my best friend, Margie, died of the disease at only 37. It was tragic; she died within months of her diagnosis, leaving two small children. However, I didn’t know much about the disease medically and I actually saw it as a death sentence,’ says Di.
‘I don’t know how other people react, but when I was diagnosed it was an incredible shock. My grandmother had lived to the ripe old age of 101, and since I was only 53, I figured I was about halfway through my life. But with the diagnosis, I realised that my life was already precarious and would be significantly changed. That was certainly something I had difficulty in facing.’
Di explains that although there was no family history of breast cancer, both she and her mother had very lumpy breasts, and Di had had a benign lump removed when she was 30. ‘It was innocent, just a cyst, but it made me vigilant.
‘I had taken two weeks’ leave in 2000 to enjoy the Sydney Olympics here in my home city. Earlier in the year, Apple received the Hewitt Associates Australian Employer of the Year Award, which gave me great pride as the Australian leader. Life was exciting and I thought nothing of going off for my annual breast check-up and mammogram.
‘I had absolutely no inkling that anything was wrong, although in hindsight I suppose I should have guessed something was just not quite right. One of my nipples was slightly out of alignment, but I knew I had put on some weight and I discarded the notion that there was a problem as ridiculous. I thought I just needed to go out and buy new, correctly fitted bras.’
‘My lump was directly behind the nipple and could not be felt easily, and my skin hadn’t changed. It never occurred to me that there was anything wrong, and certainly not anything sinister. When I walked into the doctor’s surgery I didn’t expect there would be anything significantly the matter with me. But suddenly I had two doctors in the room asking me about the nipple slant. They suggested they do a biopsy and told me right upfront they were 90 per cent sure I had breast cancer.’ A tremor in Di’s voice betrays the emotion brought on by that blunt assessment.
The doctors were also worried about several other unusual lumps in Di’s breast that had been revealed by her mammogram and ultrasound. Di received her biopsy results from her GP the next day. ‘It was a Friday, late in October 2000. I don’t know exactly what date because I decided that was one date I wasn’t going to enter in my memory,’ says Di.
‘The instant I walked in to my doctor, I knew it was bad news. She had put my appointment fairly late in the day to ensure she had the results and that she could make time to talk with me. She was really good. After delivering the bad news, she reminded me that cancer isn’t always a death sentence. But when you get this sort of news, you really don’t listen. You are in so much emotional pain and disbelief that it is really hard to take in positive messages,’ Di says perceptively.
‘I’m glad I took my husband, Bill, to the appointment because I really don’t remember too much of what was said. One minute my life was looking good; now I was devastated that everything was about to change. I had done all my check-ups, took good care of myself and I never thought it would be me. I wasn’t naïve but I did have the view that once you are diagnosed with cancer there was very little chance of long-term survival.
‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘When people are given the bad news and they say, “Well, I just got on with it,” you wonder if they really did, or were they terrified and just said that? I don’t think we can ever underestimate the impact of bad news.
‘On the day I had the mammogram—before the diagnosis—I rang my PA and told her that things weren’t looking too good and I wasn’t really up to coming in and asked her to cancel all my appointments for that day.
‘I’m pretty tough and resilient, but I was so shaken at the clinic with the suggestion that I could possibly have breast cancer that I knew I couldn’t drive myself home. I called Bill, who collected me and took me home. It’s a running joke in the family that when things get tough we sit down and have a cup of tea—so that’s all I could do. Sit down with a cuppa.’
Di had to then make decisions about how to tell her family and friends. She and Bill had planned a dinner party for friends the Saturday following her diagnosis; they made a decision to go ahead with the party but to not tell anyone.
However, the day after the party she rang each of the guests and broke the news to them. ‘It caused a bit of a hooha, and they were disappointed not to have known, but I really wanted to just enjoy myself and forget—even if it was only for that one night.’
‘I phoned my sons straight away, and although I don’t want to recall that day, my son Peter, who was in Townsville with the army, remembers the call. Sadly, he had been away when our close family friend died, and he was also overseas when his grandmother died. So it wasn’t nice to deliver bad news to him via the phone once again.
‘My other son, Scott, was in town and came straight over. Ironically, his girlfriend’s mother had been diagnosed nine months earlier with breast cancer, so he understood.’
Di’s gut reaction to her diagnosis was shock and, understandably, she wasn’t happy about it, ‘but in these type of situations I don’t do the anger or bargaining with God. Instead, I go straight into information-gathering mode. So I immediately hit the book stores and bought several books. One of them was called Your Life in Your Hands, and when I showed Bill, he told me he knew the author, Jane Plant. She was a geochemist and so when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had five reoccurrences—everyone thought she was going to die she turned to research in her quest to live. Although she covered a lot of other ground, she was particularly interested in diet and its role in controlling our health.
‘When I opened the front cover, I saw that the acknowledgments mentioned the husband of my friend Margie, who had died. I am a believer in serendipity and when I looked at that I absolutely knew I was meant to read this book,’ she says. ‘It had a series of diet suggestions that I implemented immediately.’
Although she believed she had always eaten in a healthy way, Di changed her diet the day after she was diagnosed. She cut out all dairy a choice she has stuck to—‘because research into diets shows that Chinese and Japanese women, who eat fish, use soy products and rice, have very little incidence of breast cancer,’ Di explains. She also cut out red meat and increased her daily consumption of vegetables.
‘So I really made major changes to my diet and it all started with that book. Intriguing things happened. The book explains that the Chinese think we Westerners smell of sour milk. Amazingly, soon after I gave up dairy foods I noticed that I didn’t need a deodorant any more. Previously it was a problem, and I was always looking for stronger deodorant brands, but not any more. I will always believe that cutting dairy out of my diet had a hugely positive impact on my body.’
Di laughingly says I can think she is ‘a raving looney’ but she is quite certain that after switching to soy, she could feel things changing in her breast in the first week. ‘It was like my breast was clearing itself out, getting rid of impurities. I still find it intriguing that when I had the mastectomy 17 days after changing my diet, there were three spots in the breast and the doctors were absolutely stunned: they were very low-grade. Given that there had been nothing in the breast tissue 12 months earlier, the tumour had to be fast-growing. The doctors were very surprised, but I wasn’t. I put it down totally to the fact I changed my diet radically. I am sure it wasn’t psychosomatic; it was like my breast was releasing all the toxins in there,’ Di says assuredly.
As normally happens, Di went quickly on what she calls a ‘surgeon hunt’. I called everyone who I thought could help me find the best doctor for me.’ She made two appointments, both of whom were recommended to her as excellent surgeons.
‘The first man was a delightful person but I felt like I was really a specimen. He went through everything he thought I should know but in what I suspect is the natural style for surgeons. I needed information, but I also needed to be involved as a person—someone who was in a challenging situation.
‘The second doctor, whom I selected, treated me holistically—as a whole person who had a problem. Importantly for me, she recognised that only part of my predicament was medical and much of it was emotional. We talked through all the options and I decided to go with her.’
Di didn’t want to rush into her surgery and so took a holiday weekend with her girlfriends. ‘They all knew what was happening, but before I was on the medical treadmill it was just nice to stop and enjoy life and friendships. I also think too many women feel they have to rush immediately into surgery. I didn’t think a week or two would make a difference medically and this gap time allowed my brain to get around the diagnosis.’
When Di had her mastectomy she wasn’t really upset about how the loss of a breast would look physically, ‘it was more a sadness that my breasts had served me well feeding my boys. Losing the breast felt like giving up a part of me and part of my history.’
Several days after the operation Di was told there was cancer in seven of her lymph nodes. She then needed to work out with her multidisciplinary team what treatment regime would be best for her.
‘With my oncologist, I talked through all the options presented to me and considered their impact on my longevity. I accepted the team’s advice to submit myself to the full course of therapies—two rounds of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and a five-year course of medication. However, I still really struggled with the fact that two weeks ago I felt I was perfectly healthy and here I was discussing survival rates.’
Di admits the most difficult thing for her to cope with at this time was the emotional effects her unexpected diagnosis was having on her. Being a self-confessed numbers person, she really struggled to see a 75 per cent survival rate as good news. ‘In any other situation, you’d reckon that was great odds, but I must admit my mind kept putting me down into the bottom 25 per cent.
‘Having accepted that I was going to have to go through chemotherapy was daunting, but there was light from the gloom for me when my oncologist asked if I drank alcohol. On hearing that I liked a drink or two, she’d told me that was good news because my liver was used to dealing with chemicals,’ she laughs.
‘So I faced the full-on chemical attack with four treatments of “red devil” chemo, followed by radiation therapy, with another four chemo sessions of Taxol. I must admit it is very confronting seeing the staff dressed in what looks like full combat gear come in and pump the chemicals through my body. I’d read about people imagining soldiers going into war against the cancer, but it didn’t reduce my hesitation.’
Women react as individuals during their treatments. Some check out of personal responsibility, handing over their lives to the medical staff; others want information but only enough to participate in decision-making. Di admits that she ‘spent way too much time on the web researching and reading lots and lots of different views and opinions—gathering all the knowledge and data I could.
‘During that time I met a friend of a friend for coffee. It was the first time that I actually sat down with someone else and talked openly about how I felt to have my life threatened. The woman had three little girls under the age of five and had the extremely rare, but most often terminal, placental cancer. She had found a Chinese doctor who had both Eastern and Western qualifications and she felt was helping her survive.
‘This was exciting news for me. I went and saw the doctor and he prescribed diet, meditation, acupuncture and Chinese pills. On his advice, I went off all the Chinese medicine for about a week around chemo. I felt extremely confident and comfortable about his advice. I bounced back well from chemo and had hardly any burns from the radiation. I am convinced his different approach really helped me get through more easily,’ says Di confidently.
‘He made me feel so determined and positive about building up my T-cells and my general health that I have continued to see him for the past five years. During that time I was taking Tamoxifen, so I was very happy to combine Western and Eastern medicine. In fact, I would do anything that would ensure I could achieve my goal of surviving for the first two years without a reoccurence.’
He was also very strict about my diet, which also focused on consuming no dairy, no red meat, only organic chicken and lots of fruit and vegetables. The treatment was a significant financial outlay, because you get nothing back from medical insurance, but I saw it as an invaluable investment in my future good health.’
Di is also pleased that alternative methods of treating breast cancer are now being looked into and their effects analysed in a number of research programs.
‘When I look back now, I wonder if my diet in the years preceding my diagnosis was actually the cause of my breast cancer—too much dairy and to compensate for the stress of my job I had taken to eating lots of sweets?’ Di asks.
Di attributes her choices in medicines and diet as being responsible for her recovery, and indeed survival. However, it was on a psychological level that she continued to struggle. After she finished chemotherapy she went to a psychologist because ‘I still had trouble coming to grips with what this meant for my life,’ she says honestly. ‘I wasn’t ready to check out of living and he was really helpful in allowing me to see a future.
‘One of the things he asked me to do was to stand on the far end of a carpet facing out and visualise the end of my life. In a moment of clarity I realised my life wasn’t over. We never know how much of our life is yet to be lived, but that whatever time is left must be enjoyed and savoured. Every day is important.’
Di agrees with many survivors of breast cancer that the most challenging period during a woman’s journey with breast cancer is the time following the end of medical treatments. ‘Whilst you are busy with all the medical appointments, you survive and are propelled forwards by the next treatment. Then all of a sudden you are finished and the medical carers wave goodbye and tell you they’ll see you in six months’ time. I tried hard to be positive about surviving, but it is scary being on your own. Every pain or ache seems to spell doom.’
Di confesses that it took her ages to use the past tense about cancer and she is still inclined to say that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, rather than in 2008, be definitive about having had cancer. It is a subtle difference in words, but quite an important distinction in meaning.
‘In the past I had a lot of urgency in my life. I was due to travel overseas with friends in the May of 2001, during the time when I was having treatment, but they were happy to postpone the trip and go later in that year in October. We did go away but as I wasn’t that long over treatments I was still a little slow on my feet. Such a simple thing forced me to be less earnest and more relaxed,’ she adds thoughtfully.
‘So whilst I have lost the stressfulness of having to continually achieve and get things done, I do still have an urgency. But now it is to do as much as I can with my life—because who knows what is in the future. Now I do everything sooner rather than later. I don’t want to have regrets, so if I wish for something, then I do it now. I did write down the 100 things I want to experience before I die, and I probably need to revisit that. But the interesting thing now is that I am much more comfortable with myself and the life I am living.
‘In fact, there aren’t that many things I want to do before I die,’ she says. ‘I do want to be around for my grandchildren, but materialism isn’t anywhere as high on the list as it used to be. I am pretty well roosting in my community and certainly much more protective of my body and my mind now.’
Di says breast cancer gave her the opportunity to take stock of life, face her demons and place value on different things now. She appreciates being well, being healthy and not having to visit doctors all the time. She nurtures those who matter to her.
Facing the future with optimism is Di’s key to getting on with her new life. She feels comfortable that she has done everything she could have done to live a long life. If the cancer comes back, she says she will give it her best shot.
‘We all know people who have the cancer come back, so I am keeping myself in the best possible condition to endure. If I have to fight again I am prepared to do so.’
When Di resigned from Apple in 2001, she decided not to go back to the big top end of business. ‘I didn’t want to be in corporate life in the same full-on way I had been. So I guess I just hung around until 2002 when I started to look for inspiration.
‘I had noticed in speaking to young women that they felt corporate life was often very difficult. So in August 2002 I tentatively started a mentoring style business for young women. It immediately took off, with 24 young businesswomen signing up for a six-month program. The business expanded and now my company, Xplore for Success, is partnering with many of the major organisations in Australia and I have a team of fabulous women working with me. We stimulate, teach, inspire and motivate young women who aspire to build their career,’ Di says proudly.
Professionally and personally, Di is confident and flying high. However, on a personal level, her fear of mortality, of facing her own death, still hovers around her. ‘I do struggle with the question of what happens if I die and who is going to look after the business and the programs. Because we never know when it is our time, that is one thing I continue to grapple with so I guess that prompts me to get a move on and do my succession plan,’ admits Di. ‘But working in an area that is making a difference in the world through the mentoring programs, gives me energy and great satisfaction.’
It is her faith in alternative treatments that gives her the courage to face the future boldly. By taking control of what she does, how she thinks, what she eats and contributing to a better world, Di feels that she is finally in a comfortable place in her life.