Survivor thankful for her life

For Dina Howard, Thanksgiving is far more than a traditional family holiday. It's become a milestone in the former actress and arts administrator's life.

At Thanksgiving in 2005, she'd just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Last Thanksgiving, after enduring a double mastectomy and grueling rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, she celebrated being cancer-free with the Capital Public Radio broadcast of "Dina's Diary," her audiotaped first-person journey through cancer treatment.

The award-winning hourlong program is being rebroadcast on KXJZ (90.9 FM) at 2 p.m. Friday.

Now 41, Howard knows the meaning of gratitude in ways the rest of us can hardly imagine.

"Being alive rates really high on that list," says Howard, who lives in Carmichael with her family. "So many of the answers I can give you feel like clichés. It's a shock to get cancer at age 39, and my cancer turned out to be worse than doctors originally thought.

"So what I'm thankful for first is making it through. And second is finding that my family and I had the strength to get through it.

"You never know how you'll react to a crisis until you're in that situation. It's good to know you have that strength. You hope to do it with grace, too. I don't know how graceful I've been, but I've tried."

Throughout her illness, her husband, attorney Ed Howard, kept friends and family updated on Dina's condition through a heartfelt series of e-mails. Their children, Maya and Noah, were only 2 and 6 at the time.

Even now, when Maya plays house, she includes a mother going to chemo treatments with a scarf wrapped around her bare head.

"I'm really grateful for my family," Howard says. "My husband was amazing. You like to think you can count on your spouse, but when they really show up, you feel incredibly blessed.

"My mother came up from Santa Barbara for every chemo treatment I had. And my circle of friends was wonderful. We hadn't lived here that long. My husband kept marveling about how great people in Sacramento are.

"My friends basically said, 'We're getting you through this.' They rose to the occasion."

Specifically, they organized themselves into a meal-prep service, delivering coolers of freshly cooked frozen food to the Howards every month.

Then they registered en masse for the 2006 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, and they insisted that Howard sign up for the fundraising walk, too.

"That was a chemo week for me," she says, "and I called and said, 'I'm not strong enough.' One friend told me she'd carry me the whole way if she had to. And another friend got a wheelchair."

So Howard walked part of the way, and she sat in the wheelchair for the remainder, with her friends taking care of her.

Another group of friends – these, from Howard's high school days in Santa Barbara, scattered now across the country – made sure that a gift of some sort arrived for Dina each Monday. A video. A poem. Tokens of affection.

"I'm really grateful that people helped me through it all," says Howard. "And I'm really grateful about the whole radio show."

Produced by KXJZ's Paul Conley and Joe Barr and recently featured on the Public Radio Exchange, the powerful and moving audio diary of Dina Howard's yearlong path from cancer treatment to survival has been picked up to air in Austin, Texas, and Seattle. It also won public radio and Associated Press documentary programming awards.

When she taped her fearful reflections on her way into mastectomy surgery and her chemo appointments, survival was her only goal.

"I spent my 40th birthday bald and in treatment," Howard says. "You look at your life, and that's not what you expect at 40. It gives you a totally different perspective on age."

And on life and family and friends – and gratitude, on Thanksgiving and every day.

About the writer:

• Anita Creamer's column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in Scene. Call her, (916) 321-1136. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/creamer.