chemo. It’s just incredible how that
affects your body.”
Born in Lake Placid, NY, Sheft
moved to Texas after marrying a
Lockheed employee on assignment in
New York.
Here since 1991, she said small-
town Texas life suits her, as she
grew up a “country girl” in the
Adirondacks of northeastern New
York.
With a background as a phleboto-
mist, Sheft spent 24 years working
for veterinarians, but is currently not
working, though she hopes to find
her way forward through her artwork,
which for many years did not fit into
her busy life.
She came back to the easel after
cancer deconstructed her life and
more or less grounded her.
“It is therapeutic,” she said. “Since
I haven’t been able to paint, since
my hand surgery, I’ve been going
crazy, because I can’t do anything.
You can’t do much with one hand.
It’s not easy to live with one hand.
[Particularly if the injured hand is
your dominant one.] I did make
myself finish a painting that I’d start-
blank.”
That fourth surgery, on Aug. 28,
virtually ended her painting. Physical
therapy was to begin the day after
this interview, and Sheft said she
hoped to regain range of motion in
her hand and to return to her painting
soon.
Reflecting on her changed life,
Sheft said, “Cancer … there’s so
much of it out there; and no one
understands that until you have it.
[Then] all you see are these people
that you keep running into that
have it. I remember the first time I
walked into the cancer center, and I
looked at all these people and I said
to myself, ‘What am I doing here?’
It was so sad, because these people
looked so sad, and so lost, and so old
and beat down. You’re in a different
bubble when you’re diagnosed with
cancer. And people don’t understand
it unless they’re in that bubble with
you. That’s why support groups are
good. It changes you. Your balance
is off — I was a ballerina for 13 or
14 years, and the balance is not the
same anymore … and it’s all due to
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