When American Barbara Pate Glacel was living in Belgium in 1996 and going through breast cancer treatment she received a funny hat from a friend in Bermuda. The hat, consisting of fake dread locks, brought a moment of joy into an otherwise sad time in her life.

Mrs. Glacel, is the author of a book about surviving breast cancer called, ?Hitting the Wall?.

Last week, Mrs. Glacel repaid the favour several times over, when she spoke about her experiences as a breast cancer survivor during a breast cancer awareness month event held at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute.

As well as delivering her speech ? ?Surviving and Thriving? ? she brought along her ?Rasta and pasta? hat and hoped to talk a little bit about all the hats she wore during her breast cancer treatment.

?After going through chemotherapy when I had no hair, people started sending me hats,? she said. ?The truth is I never wore very many of them. Some of them were so wild and crazy. They all represented a lesson to me about surviving and getting through that cancer journey and what it meant to have support.?

Mrs. Glacel was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 48. At the time, she was living with her husband Robert ? an American Army General ? in the French-speaking part of Belgium.

Having the disease in a foreign country, added to her initial emotional trauma and confusion.

?It was very difficult, maybe an experience similar to what some Bermudians go through since they can?t get all their treatment on the Island,? said Mrs. Glacel. ?Breast cancer or any serious disease creates a situation where you really need a lot of support.?

Her situation was complicated by the fact that she spoke only ?mediocre? French and had no medical vocabulary. Cultural attitudes towards illness strengthened the communication barrier for Mrs. Glacel.

?The European attitude is that when something serious like this happens it is not okay to talk about it,? she said. ?I had only my husband and one daughter with me. I lived in a Belgian neighbourhood and really just waved across the fence at our neighbours.?

She said cancer is a lonely experience, and she felt like she was in a huge vacuum.

?There were a few women in the NATO community who had come together on their own to support one another, but they did not actually have the blessings of the medical community,? Mrs. Glacel said. ?When we met once a month, it was a little bit of the blind leading the blind. We learned that despite our nationalities we were going through a very similar journey. We also learned that we could laugh with one another. There is almost a black humour that cancer patients can have with one another that is not okay to have outside of that community. It really did provide a wonderful outlet in terms of having someone else to talk to who understood the journey.?

She said there was a group in Belgium similar to post-breast cancer surgery group ?Reach to Recovery? called ?Vivre Com Avant?, which means ?live as before?.

?There is a funny conflict between civilians trying to help and the medical community there,? she said. ?The doctors wouldn?t allow these volunteer women to, for instance, come in and teach the exercises that breast cancer patients have to do to get the mobility back in their arms after surgery. So they were limited in what the doctors would let them do.?

Mrs. Glacel said she was relieved, one day when an older Belgian woman walked into her hospital room speaking fluent English.

?I really felt my angel had walked in because it was somebody else who understood, who would speak to me in my own language, and had been through breast cancer, had a mastectomy,? said Mrs. Glacel. ?She made for me a little cotton prosthesis to wear out of the hospital. I was so relieved, because I had had these huge fears that I was going to leave the hospital without anything. I didn?t know where I was going to buy a prosthesis in Belgium. She was truly my rescue.?

Mrs. Glacel was in Bermuda for three days. This was not her first visit to Bermuda. Three decades ago, she and her husband visited for a three-day weekend.

?When I flew in, what I remembered so vividly was the beautiful colour of the water,? she said.

While on the Island, Mrs. Glacel attended a tea and fashion show hosted by breast cancer support group ?Just Between Us?. She said activities like this are very important for breast cancer survivors.

?It is important that their self-image be affirmed or confirmed by those around them,? Mrs. Glacel said. ?There are statistics that show that women who have supportive spouses and families actually have a higher survival rate after breast cancer. Some of that also has to do with self-image. The people who are close to you, are affirming you and confirming that you look okay again.?

She said some women who have mastectomies never undress again in front of their spouses.

?To me that is very sad, because the essence of who you are either remains the same or has the potential to get even richer and deeper after the experiences you have gone through,? she said. ?A body part shouldn?t make a difference.?

She wrote ?Hitting the Wall? to share her journey with other women. She said it is important for breast cancer patients to hear stories of survival.

?When I was diagnosed I had no idea what breast cancer was like,? she said. ?I didn?t know very many people who had had breast cancer. I didn?t know what it was like for them.

?I reached out to some of those folks and it was so important to hear from them, this is what you will be going through, these are the kind of decisions that you will have to make.?

Mrs. Glacel said breast cancer is a different world with its own vocabulary.

?You are in a state of shock and you have to make so many decisions at once,? she said. ?Every woman?s case may be unique, but there are some universals. It helps women to feel that they are not so alone.?

She wants people to know that breast cancer no longer has to be a death sentence.

?When a doctor says to you, you have been diagnosed with cancer, the first thing that enters your mind is, ?I?m going to die?,? said Mrs. Glacel. ?Breast cancer really is no longer a death sentence. That doesn?t mean that people don?t die of it. They do. But the survival rates are so much better now. We have so much better treatment.?

The day she was diagnosed she lay in bed weeping, and thinking about all the milestone in her two daughters? lives that she would miss. She had to work through that before she figured out, ?this is not about my death, it is about how I am going to live?.

?If I can share that message through my book with other women, then it is a good deed, I guess,? she said.

?Hitting the Wall? is Mrs. Glacel?s third book, but she does not consider herself a professional writer. She has a doctoral degree in political science, and has written an academic book about public policy and a business book on leadership.

?I have become active in lobbying for breast cancer issues,? she said. ?Shortly after my recovery I testified before the US Congress about the difficulty in access to medical care under managed health programmes. I think my political science background has helped me to know how to work the political channels.?

Mrs. Glacel said she wanted to use last week?s forum to share her experiences, and to encourage survivors and the family and friends of survivors to help each other.