Volume 10 • Issue 1 • Winter 2006
"You have to learn to laugh through the
tears." Annie Bach's Story
 Healthy
People magazine readers may remember Annie Bach as the skydiving daredevil
who celebrated her cancer survival by jumping out of a plane. Her
experience was captured on the October 1995 cover.
Annie was diagnosed with breast cancer Nov.
9, 1994. More than 10 years later, she remembers the details of that day
vividly: waiting for her husband to come home from work, seeing her three
children off to bed, thinking and worrying.
“At 37, it was such as shock. Anyone I had known who experienced breast
cancer was much older. When I think back on it, it was an unknown at that
time. Breast cancer wasn’t as out (in the public) as at is now. It kind of
derailed me,” Annie says.
After a mastectomy and four rounds of chemotherapy, Annie was deemed
cancer-free in March 1995. Since then, her sister has also survived a bout
with breast cancer. With the exception of lymphedema (swelling of the arms
after a mastectomy) Annie says she feels great.
“I was always the kind of person who stopped to smell the roses anyway,
but you really learn how precious life is and not to take anything for
granted when you are diagnosed with cancer,” she says.
A Sense of Humor
Annie would love to go skydiving again and is contemplating another jump.
For now she stays grounded, doing newborn hearing screenings at St. John’s
Hospital in Springfield and volunteer work with cancer organizations. She
was named volunteer of the year in 1999 for the Susan G. Komen Breast
Cancer Foundation and has served as a counselor for the American Cancer
Society’s Reach to Recovery program.
On the fifth anniversary of her clean bill of health, Annie bought herself
a pink-ribbon necklace from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
“You always worry that it might come back,” she says. “But I’m diligent
about my health and I get regular mammograms.”
Friends and family helped her cope and now help her celebrate the
milestones. During a breast cancer awareness month event one October, she
delivered a cake to Alice 95.5 disc jockey Kevin Howard. It was shaped
like a woman’s torso wearing a bikini top.
“I’m all about having a sense of humor,” she says. “You have to learn to
laugh through the tears.”
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