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Outskirts Press - Victoria Lynn Johnson

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223 pages

English

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Victoria Johnson's face was made famous on magazine covers, her body the perfect centerfold fantasy, while her winning image served as an advertiser's dream. Thousands of alluring photographs opened doors for her in New York, Hollywood, and the capitals of Europe. And then, as she wrote, "My life changed in that one moment." When Victoria learned she had Stage IV cancer, her grandmother's words came to mind: "Is it time to use the good china?" Victoria Johnson called on her strength and her faith as she chose to become someone who was "living with cancer." For the next 20 years, she became the most informed cancer patient possible, studying and fighting her disease with equal fervor, making sure her life stood as a message for others as she stressed the importance of giving back. Despite the long journey of chemotherapy, miracle drugs, radiation, a double craniotomy, infections, a mastectomy, reconstructive surgery, and seven brain tumors-resulting in lymphedema, osteoporosis, visual impairment, and hearing loss-Victoria spoke out as a survivor, lecturing on the beauty of a life well-led and reflecting on the important issues of courage, conviction, and dedication.

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Healing

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Publié par	Outskirts Press
Date de parution	25 août 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781977233905
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Naked Inside Out From Penthouse Centerfold to 13 Years of Stage 4 Breast Cancer: The Drop-Dead Story of Victoria Lynn Johnson All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2020 Victoria Lynn Johnson v3.0
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Horwitz-Johnson Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-9772-3390-5
Cover Photo © 2020 Victoria Lynn Johnson. All rights reserved - used with permission.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE If She Only Had a Brain
PART 1 TEMPTATIONS
CHAPTER 1 The Hottest Ticket in Town
CHAPTER 2 A Call to the Wild Side
CHAPTER 3 You’re Just Going to Marry and Have Babies
CHAPTER 4 A Moment in Time
CHAPTER 5 NYC: Pavement Pounding to Pampered Pet
CHAPTER 6 The Tidal Wave
CHAPTER 7 The Road Not Taken
CHAPTER 8 Frequent Flyer
CHAPTER 9 London Bridge
CHAPTER 10 The Awakening
CHAPTER 11 Seven-Year Stretch
CHAPTER 12 Just the Two of Us
CHAPTER 13 A Grand Prix Whirlwind
CHAPTER 14 25 Cities
CHAPTER 15 Pet of the Decade
CHAPTER 16 Finding Fame in the Most Unusual Places:
CHAPTER 17 Playing Against Type
PART 2 DISILLUSIONS
CHAPTER 18 Skyway to Hell
CHAPTER 19 What Am I Doing Here?
CHAPTER 20 Eurotrash Invasion
CHAPTER 21 Living to Die
CHAPTER 22 Fresh Mountain Air
CHAPTER 23 Friends, Families, Heartaches
CHAPTER 24 An Unexpected Biopsy
CHAPTER 25 Combat Zone
CHAPTER 26 Occam’s Razor
PART 3 BREAKTHROUGHS
CHAPTER 27 Hair
CHAPTER 28 Twelve Good Days
CHAPTER 29 Beyond Rotary House
CHAPTER 30 The Next Big Plan
CHAPTER 31 One in a Million
CHAPTER 32 Comeback Girl
CHAPTER 33 A 4-0 Silk Stitch
CHAPTER 34 St. Mary-of-the-Woods
CHAPTER 35 A Year in the Fast Lane
CHAPTER 36 Beauty and the Beast
CHAPTER 37 Precious Years
CHAPTER 38 Latissimus Dorsi
CHAPTER 39 Heart to Heart
CHAPTER 40 Three More Months
CHAPTER 41 God in the Bathtub
CHAPTER 42 A Stellar Year
CHAPTER 43 It’s Time to Use the Good China
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
If She Only Had a Brain
Cancer is not pretty. I can’t make cancer pretty. Cancer doesn’t care if you’re pretty or not or how much people love you. Cancer just takes and takes and takes, and leaves nothing pretty behind.
My destiny was shaped by my family and friends, and even strangers who repeatedly uttered one simple phase that I heard throughout my entire childhood: Isn’t she pretty!
My face, my womanly and curvaceous body, my remarkable red hair: these were the assets I was given. People seemed to just love looking at me. So why wouldn’t I think that modeling would be a viable and lucrative profession? Photographers couldn’t get enough of taking my picture. I knew how to dress, how to move, how to use makeup correctly to enhance my natural assets to maximum wattage. Inherently shy, I taught myself to stand in the spotlight.
So why wouldn’t I accept the challenge to become one of the most recognized women in the United States, appearing in the top-selling monthly magazine on America’s newsstands? In 1976, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione selected me as centerfold, then Pet of the Year, gracing more publications that any other Penthouse model. It brought me fame and took me to Hollywood, giving me a niche in movies and television.
People’s reactions to my life’s choices were varied. Some turned up their noses. Others gave me applause, a high five, and a "Way to go, girl." And then the final group felt obligated to express their disdain for my career at every opportunity. This group I imagined were filled with glee when news of my cancer became public. "I guess she got what she deserved," they could finally say.
One after another, my natural assets began to betray me. My thick and famous red hair was gone, lost to chemo. My breasts, which Bob Guccione once described as the most beautiful he’d ever seen, were not only no longer attractive, but battered and disfigured. Photography was no longer a tool to highlight my allure, but a way to examine clearly every organ and tissue on my body. My naked self was more exposed that it was ever in the pages of Penthouse . My body was betraying me.
As I wrote in my journal, "I am totally exposed. My left breast has been squeezed and imaged and aspirated so many times it no longer holds any sense of pleasure it once had. I’ve been turned inside out, like a piece of laundry tossed in a dryer too long. My intestines, my bowels, my guts are exposed and open. Every fiber of my breast, every tissue of my brain is existing only to be examined and prodded. What once appeared beautiful to so many, is now being eaten away by horrid spots of this cancer. I feel so naked, so very naked."
The primary difference between my cancer story and others is that I have been in continual treatment for thirteen years since diagnosis. I still receive gene therapy treatment in the hospital every three weeks, and for as long as I continue to fight this battle, I will always be in treatment if I so choose. Remaining "stable" requires it.
Another way that my story differs is that I refuse to be considered a cancer "victim." I took responsibility for attacking the monster that seeks to destroy me.
When I was diagnosed in July 1998, the doctor’s words slashed at me like the Grim Reaper’s blade: Breast cancer. Stage 4, no cure. Metastasized to all major organs. No need for a mastectomy, since the cancer has already left the primary site. In other words, it was too late. My entire life was predicated on beauty, and no one thought I would be strong enough to survive the devastation.
Too much of a realist to think I would actually beat Stage 4 cancer, I was determined to live as well as possible in the time remaining. When I learned of a treatment therapy called Herceptin, which at that time had recently been FDA approved and was still unproven in the real world, I chose Herceptin over my doctors’ "last resort" decision, an allogeneic bone marrow transplant, and Herceptin worked. After thirteen years, five breast surgeries, and removal of seven brain tumors, I’m still living as well as possible eleven and a half years longer than predicted.
Throughout the battle, I repeatedly have overcome "insurmountable" odds and defied time and again even the most optimistic predictions of the most experienced cancer physicians in the world. When asked how, these physicians all reply with the same basic answers: "She has an indomitable spirit." "She never gives in." "She keeps her sense of humor." Most of all: "She educated herself about her disease and participated in her own treatment."
In other words, the woman no one suspected of having a brain, because they couldn’t see past "pretty," past the red hair and sexy curves, used her most underrated, ignored, and seemingly insignificant organ to if not beat the monster, at least keep it growling inside its cage.
Ultimately, my survival has come from the same source that brought me success in my modeling career: tenacity, determination, and a desire to experience all that life has to offer. These were traits no picture could ever convey, and no matter how much of my hair, my breasts, my brain, or other body parts were lost to my disease, these inner traits I refused to let cancer rip away. I once admired a young patient at MD Anderson wearing a T-shirt that said, "If you’re not living life on the edge, you’re taking up too much space." Living with Stage 4 Cancer, constantly kicking death to the curb, is living life on the edge.
Cancer is still a part of me. I’m still in treatment, but no matter what happens next, I’ve already won my greatest battle. If my story can be a source of hope and inspiration, not only to cancer patients but to anyone wrestling with life-altering challenges, then I’ve struck the beast another debilitating blow. There are many people fighting to see cancer eliminated. Every year I survive is a step closer to that reality.
Sitting at the hospital undergoing yet another treatment, I remind myself, there’s no time like now to enjoy life. Or as my Southern grandmother used to say when things got tough, "It’s time to use the good china."
PART 1
TEMPTATIONS

Christmastime in Georgia. Family and friend.
CHAPTER 1
The Hottest Ticket in Town
Mableton, Georgia, 1968
The man standing in front of me, smelling of coffee breath and Aramis cologne, couldn’t keep his groping eyes above my neck. At the back of the dress shop, metal hangers clinked loudly as his wary wife marked down sweaters and shoved them along a chrome rod, occasionally tossing suspicious looks our way.
The man clasped his hands together, as if to keep them from being ineluctably drawn toward the objects of his interest.
"Victoria," he mumbled, tugging his eyes up to meet mine, "I see an exciting role for you here."
Shortly after turning sixteen, I’d set about the task of landing my first summer job with the same resolve and intuition that would influence decisions continually throughout my life. One of my friends was applying at the local Dairy Queen in our rural town near Atlanta, but squishing soft sugary goop into ice cream cones and serving it to boys from school cruising around in their souped-up Mustangs was not my idea of a promising career start. I wanted an exhilarating and unique job my friends would never even imagine. I wanted to be different.
My first choice was the recently opened Six Flags Over Georgia, with its roller coasters and excitement, which attracted fascinating people from all over the state. After Six Flags turned me down, this dress