Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad

In 1990 I planned to continue teaching piano to children as long as I could stand in my tennis shoes. But finding three primary cancers in my left breast shocked me to the toes of those shoes. The night before my first mastectomy, I wept as I wrote the poem, "Goodbye, Beloved Breast." Other poems followed. My oncologist said, "Do something with these."

So I added journal entries and reflections and wrote a book, Fine Black Lines: Reflections on Facing Cancer, Fear and Loneliness (1993, 2003). It was a bit out of character that I agreed to appear nude from the waist up on the cover of the October 1993 issue of Colorado Woman News. It is a bit unusual that my husband, Les, and I traveled over 400,000 miles mostly by car) while I spoke more than 550 times in all 50 United States, England, and Canada.

In 2001, Rosie Magazine (formerly McCall's) featured me and I appeared on the Rosie O'Donnell Show.

In 2002 I wrote The Last Violet: Mourning My Mother. For our 50th wedding anniversary I promised to write a book for Les. It took 11 years, but This Path We Share: Reflecting on 60 Years of Marriage came out in April 2010.

We live in Englewood, Colorado, and have four children, fourteen grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren.