CAROLYN NIKKANEN
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Women With Vision
Spring/Summer Issue 2004
Things DO go in full circle.
By Lorraine Leslie
Working at my desk one afternoon the phone rang. I picked it up and heard, "Is this Lorraine? Lorraine Leslie?" I replied "Yes. Who's this?" "A voice from the past, Carolyn Nikkanen." Oh my goodness...
The Women with Vision Networking Luncheon District Coordinator for Vaughn, Gina Bello, had just asked Carolyn to be a speaker for one of her luncheons. Carolyn, being
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inquisitive as to what Women with Vision is all about, learned that her old friend, Lorraine Leslie, was the founder.
In my minds eye I instantly pictured myself strutting down the runway in Eaton's Auditorium modelling for Eleanor Fultcher, a Toronto modelling agency back in the early 60's. At the age of twelve, I started modelling and by the time I was a teenager I felt quite comfortable on the runway. Wearing all the latest fashions was such a rush back then.
Jumping ahead some years, in 198 I was working as a volunteer with the Heart and Stroke Foundation creating and coordinating the first Mississauga Women's Show, when I had the though let's have a fashion show as part of the event. I opened the yellow pages and searched for a local modelling agency to see if they would volunteer some of their models to work the event. That's when I met Carolyn Nikkanen.
Carolyn and I became instant friends. We had so much in common at that time in our lives. Love of modelling, fashion, make up, hairstyling and of course trips down the runway. We shared many experiences together, including the Mrs. Mississauga Pageant, in which I was a contestant (but that's another story).
What intrigued me most about Carolyn was her personable approach to business. She could take a dandelion and turn it into a rose. Carolyn was and is an incredible woman with a vision. I have watched her natural talent surface like a flower blooming the in the springtime. People of all ages have come to her for guidance, to help them turn their lives around, or to teach them self-improvement through the art of modelling. You see, Carolyn has been passionate about her profession since she was a young child.
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Carolyn entered into the modelling industry from the lens side of the camera. At the age of three she was dazzling the photographers.
Carolyn was raised by her mother while living in her grandparent's home due to her parents' divorce, so as a child she learned that her strict Pentecostal faith would give her inner strength along her journey and to pursue her dream of being a model.
"We didn't have a lot of money when I was young," she said. "My parents were separated...there was a lot of stress. I was always sick."
Due to her religious background it was untraditional to wear make-up, but Carolyn felt it was important to look her best when she was in front of the camera as a child. Now at the age of 47, Carolyn stills models on
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occasion for shows held as cancer research fundraisers.
In spite of many obstacles Carolyn like the work and kept it up, eventually signing on with the Judy Welch modelling agency.
To be a model you have to be proactive. To get a "go see" once has top be pound the pavement on knock on doors to be noticed. Your resume is quite a bit different from the norm. There are headshots to be taken, which can be very expensive, but it is an investment into one's future. There's catalogue work for some, runway for others and if you're lucky break comes along commercials and magazine covers.
"I always saw myself owing a modelling," recalls Carolyn. "I always asked myself...If this was my business, how would I run it?"
Carolyn taught modelling for the agency she was working with. Recognizing the potential, she approached the Ministry of Vocational Schools and was advised to set up curriculum which resulted in her teaching her modelling classes in community centers in the Streetsville area west of Toronto.
Carolyn took the initiative to approach the woman who was to retire from her modelling company , asking if she could buy the business. She actually slid a letter under the door asking for a meeting. To Carolyn's amazement, the women responded and within two weeks Carolyn opened her own business under her own name.
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"The letter under the door asked if I could take over the equipment and rent. Through personal funding, within two weeks I took over the business for $300.00 in addition to paying the first and last months rent on the location. I redecorated and restructured the business and it was mine."
I thought, " What have I got myself into where will the business come from?" As Carolyn had already built an excellent reputation for teaching skills, the clients came through word of mouth. She taught the classes herself, did the accounting, booked the models and hired the photographers. A number of years
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later in 1990 she employed actors and started to submit them for TV commercials and television series and eventually for movies.
On the personal side, while she was seeing her second marriage dissolve, she came face to face with cancer.
Carolyn was only 35, raising a family, running the now defunct Mrs. Mississauga Pageant when she discovered a lump in her breast the size of an egg. "You could actually see it", she said.
After an ordered mammogram from her doctor Carolyn thought everything was going to be fine. It was not fine, and about a month later she lost her breast to a mastectomy. Carolyn felt like she was starring in her own movie. "The first thing you always say is, "why me?"" said Carolyn. Then it's... My God, my kids, I won't see them grow up."
Always being in the public eye, Carolyn's vanity kicked in. "Who's is ever going to love half a woman?" she said. "That's the selfish part.
"Then I had the attitude that if a man didn't love me as I was, who needs them?"
All through chemotherapy Carolyn continued to run her business.
Carolyn contemplated getting an implant. She would drive to the drug store to get an external implant to fill her bra while she was at work. She recalls, the loose implant was a source of fun for her. Vacuuming her business it would pop out of her bra and plop on the floor. She'd promptly pick it up and would lob it at someone. "Flying boob!" she'd call out.
The decision wasn't even a question. Implant in place, life was returning back to normal. In 1995, the cancer returned, this time in her lymph nodes. "I though this was it, game over."
What was going to happen to her children? Her business? Her passions!
After six months of chemotherapy Carolyn was threatened by losing the kind of beauty that the camera had captured many times.
"I remember lying on the couch and pulling my hair and it coming out in handfuls," said Carolyn.
The chemotherapy drained every once of her energy. She had canker sores along her tongue, mouth and throat which made it difficult to carry a conversation.
"Walking across the road was effort, but I went to work everyday."
Being the survivor that she is, she rallied again. She bought wigs and reveled in how little time it took herself to get ready each morning. There was no shaving or waxing or plucking any more, no more shampooing or blow-drying. Carefully place the wig and go. On the hot summer day she'd go home an yank it off and let the cool night breeze caress her bare skin.
There were good days and bad days. But she got through them. A year after her treatment she walked down the aisle with husband no. 3. "It lasted one year," she said. It was a nightmare."
Carolyn fought to keep her business. She succeeded in 2000, the cancer made it's third appearance. Milder this time but all too present. She is cancer free today but still takes oral chemotherapy to stop the cancer from forming. It has caused her to gain weight and dragged through menopause three times.
"I was all over the map," she says laughingly. "But now I think I am post menopause for good."
Carolyn, through all this, has learned to care of her health. Once a fitness instructor she is now an avid student of natural health remedies and takes daily vitamins and herbs. She became a reflexologist because she found that when she was receiving a treatment it helped her illness. She watches what she eats and is interested in keeping knowledge up to date on the most recent remedies and medical procedures.
Though she had no family history of cancer, she feels stress may have made her vulnerable.
Now Carolyn has settled into her spacious and elegant home with her new husband, three children, two dogs and a cat. She has taken over a small business with an income of a few thousand dollars to a gross of about $1 million.
Coming close to death more the average person Carolyn has changed her attitude towards life and can be seen lecturing on the change to cancer survivors and sufferers.
She believes in 'Don't sweat the small stuff.' "You have to have a positive attitude." says Carolyn. "I wake up smiling each day and happy to be here. When bad things happen' I know it's just a bump in the road, I take a much longer view"
"When I was younger, I was so into material things, I was narrow-minded. Now, it's what you have in your heart. That's what success is built on."
Carolyn belies in asking the universe for what you want. "I think good things... and good things happen. Like my husband for example. I feel comfortable with him and we have things in common. It's a fourth marriage for the both of us. We combined both our families, my tow daughters and his son and we all get along great. My husband and I share the same birthday- same day, same year." Amazing.
When Carolyn is motivated about something her ambition restiveness kicks in, he encourages her to slow down when she needs to. "We balance each other out very nicely." she smiles.
"I am finally at peace. Life is too precious and you never know when the end is going to come. Tell your family and friends that you love them everyday. Say I love you to your husband, wife, someone you care about deeply...It's good for the soul."
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Through trial and error Carolyn has learned to trust her gut instinct. She has learned to say NO to demands that are too much for her to handle.
When people fall ill, she encourages them to let others help. Accept their offers. They truly want to be there for you. Rest when you are tired, in whatever profession you are in. Fighting a life treating illness is not time for false pride.
Carolyn is still a driven, ambitious business woman, one quality she inherits from her musician father, now living in
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the unites states.
"If it's going to be it's up to me!" Carolyn quotes. "I never sat back and waited for things to happen. I made them happen. I live by the words of my friend Suzanne...You have to have something to love, something to cherish and something to look forward to."
Carolyn is presently writing a book on her struggles with cancer in hopes of helping more people then she can reach through her current work with the Canadian Cancer Society.
Proof of her training as a child model has come full circle. "Ill be writing a chapter and I'll be crying and then the next minute I'll be writing and I'm laughing my head off."
Carolyn intrigued me when I first met her...this magnificent woman with vision. Vision to carry on through life's journey and not to succumb to it's obstacles. She has not waived from the personable friend I met years ago, but now there's and inner spark of an angel; a woman who openly shares her life, whether through business or on a personal basis.
Carolyn now owns and operates two modelling agencies, one in Mississauga and one in downtown Toronto with though of opening a satellite location in British Columbia. www.carolynsonline.com
Carolyn' proud cannot express my sincere and heartfelt thinks in being your friend and business colleague. I'm so glad our paths crossed again.
You reinforce something all of us must remember...
It's up to me!
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THE MISSISSAUGA NEWS
Three-time champ keeps cancer at bay
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Radhika Panjwani
Oct 30, 2005
In the business of beauty, cancer is an unwelcome intruder.
Carolyn Nikkanen, 48, knows too well that having to beat cancer three times is three times too many.
A former model, Nikkanen's honed instincts seek flawlessness and perfection of the body.
Yet despite losing a breast to cancer, hair to chemotherapy and her uterus to hysterectomy, she didn't feel any "less a woman." She did before, but not anymore.
"I like who I am now, more than who I was," she said. "It (cancer) has created an awareness and I am in tune with myself."
This inner strength and quiet contemplation is the result of experiencing pain, loss, anger and every conceivable emotion, over and over. With October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Nikkanen believes her battles and triumphs can inspire others who are faced with similar health issues.
Nikkanen's life altered when, one day when undressing she noticed a lump in her left breast. She was a 35-year-old single mom raising two daughters at the time.
She remembers going in for a mammogram, a subsequent biopsy and the horror of realizing that life was indeed fragile.
The result of the biopsy revealed she was in the initial stages of cancer.
"When I was sitting in the doctor's office, I felt like I was in a movie and that I was above my body watching," she said. "It was as if I left my body and wasn't there."
She underwent a mastectomy and six months later opted for an implant. And then once again during a self-examination of the breast she found another lump. This time, the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, she was in stage two.
The doctor suggested chemotherapy and Nikkanen was warned she would lose her hair.
"Actually, the idea of losing my hair devastated me more than the chemo," she said. "I was a single mom and I kept thinking, how could this be happening?"
Nikkanen survived chemotherapy and its side-effects and gamely opted for a wig.
"Sometimes at night, when I was alone, I would look into the mirror and cry, my God, I am sick, I have cancer," she said. "And in the daytime, I would put my makeup and wig on and then I would go to work, even if I didn't feel like going. It was my work that kept me going."
In retrospect, Nikkanen thinks if she hadn't discovered the first lump in time, she would have lost the battle to cancer.
"My advice to women is; even if you are young, examine your breasts regularly. Women have to be aware and in tune with their own bodies."
Life was getting into some semblance of normalcy, when in 2000, she noticed a lump yet again, this time in the scar tissue.
Nikkanen underwent surgery to remove the malignant tissue and was prescribed Tamoxifen, an anti-cancer drug.
It has been five years of cancer-free existence, but the apprehension bubbles ever so gently under the surface.
"The fear that you live with when you're diagnosed with cancer never totally goes away," she said.
Nikkanen is a businesswoman who owns a string of enterprises such as Carolyn's Model and Talent Agency Ltd., Carolyn's Kidz and Studio Talent Mgt. She is the spokesperson for the Canadian Cancer Society and volunteers for Look Good, Feel Better, an organization that teaches women the art of make-up and grooming while being diagnosed with cancer.
"I have to say to anybody going through cancer, it is not the end of the world," Nikkanen said. "It can be beaten. I am the example. I really believe, the mind has something to do with it."
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Friday January 24, 2004
The Toronto Sun
FACING UP TO LIFE
Local model agent and photographer draws on inner strength to battle cancer
By Joanne Richard
Call it a tale of beauty and the beast. Former model turned model agent Carolyn Nikkanen is the beauty -- and the beast is cancer. Three times Nikkanen has beaten cancer. "Three times lucky I guess -- and now four." One week ago, she was informed
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Carolyn Nikkanen is surrounded by photos of the many models who work through her three businesses
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that the polyps in her uterus and the cyst on her right ovary were non-malignant -- "I am okay! Whew!" Ever since the abnormalities were detected two months ago, visions of endometrium cancer have stalked her, creeping and seeping into her thoughts when her guard is down, when she is tired, when the lights are out and she's lying in bed.
"No matter how positive and strong you are, you have bad moments when you cry and feel sorry for yourself. Then the pity party's over and you go on -- you have to or it will destroy you, physically and emotionally," she says.
Picking herself up and getting on with life is all too familiar to Nikkanen, who has seen three marriages collapse and her health almost destroyed by the insidious, ugly disease, all the while trying to meet the challenges of single parenting and running a company in the highly-charged and competitive modelling and talent industry.
FAILING MARRIAGE
That's all since 1992, when she was confronted by a failing marriage and a lump in her breast -- within a month her left breast was gone and so was her husband. And that's how it all began and she had to start digging deeper and deeper.
Nikkanen has relied on her inner strength, strong spiritual convictions and prayer to beat back the beast, heal and move forward; she has refused to crumble or stumble in an industry that demands beauty, physical perfection and an effervescent persona.
Through it all she has remained the savvy, dynamic and dazzling businesswoman who runs three Mississauga and Toronto businesses -- Carolyn's Model and Talent Agency, Studio Talent Management and Carolyn's Kids. She is also a spokesman for the Canadian Cancer Society, volunteers for the Look Good, Feel Better cancer program and even shoots Sunshine Boys for The Toronto Sun.
It's apparent she applies her business know-how to getting better: "In modelling or acting, you have to get out there and pound the pavement. You have to make things happen. Nothing comes easy in life -- you can't give up," says Nikkanen, who fervently attacked work as the cancer attacked her on three separate occasions.
She insisted on working even through the six months of chemotherapy back in 1995. "I was nauseous, tired, drained and feeling horrible, but I dragged myself in to work -- I had to keep busy and keep my mind occupied. I had a business to run," says Nikkanen, matter-of-factly.
It was about 12 years ago while undressing that she first noticed something just wasn't right. "The lump was the size of an egg. It came up so fast that I thought it can't be cancer," she says.
But it was cancer and, after consulting six other doctors, she opted for surgery: "I was 35 years old and losing a breast. My marriage was going down the drain. All I could think about was what man is gonna love only half a woman?"
A mastectomy was performed: "I felt so ugly looking at myself in the mirror, gazing at my concave chest. My breast was gone. You could see the bones. I felt like half a woman, but I was alive."
She opted for reconstructive surgery within six months: "I had no nipple, but it helped me feel like a whole woman. I could wear a bathing suit and feel beautiful. And no more temporary prosthesis that kept popping out of my bra every time I vacuumed."
Then three years later, another lump was discovered -- "18 lymph nodes were removed and nine were malignant. I went through six months of chemotherapy injections -- one of the worst things I've ever experienced," she says. "I lost all my hair, my eyelashes and my eyebrows. Hundreds of painful canker sores and blisters developed in my mouth and vagina and rectum. It was all so horrible -- so toxic."
At the same time, her second marriage fell apart but somehow she held on to her sanity, her two daughters and a budding modelling business. She started going to the gym and turned to naturopathy, reflexology, herbal remedies and a strict vitamin regime -- today she takes 30 different supplements daily.
"Cancer is like a death sentence -- I never wanted to go through chemo again so I decided to change how I was living and what I was putting into my body."
But in 1999, it came back. She found another malignant lump under her left arm and had it surgically removed. Tamoxifen was prescribed and she suffered early menopause as well as memory lapses and nausea -- all side effects of this potent drug.
"Once again I found myself angry and asking, 'Why me? What have I done to deserve this?' " says Nikkanen, whose third marriage of one year also dissolved at this time.
SPIRITUALITY
Once again drawing on her phenomenal inner strength and spirituality, she eventually moved on, got better, remarried, moved to Milton and now does more and more inspirational talks with cancer survivors, sufferers and their family members.
She continues to take Tamoxifen and only has one year left on the drug as long as she remains cancer-free. Life is good, she says: "I am thankful for every day and take nothing for granted. My good friend Suzanne always reminds me you must have something to do, something to love and something to look forward to."
Something good always comes out of something bad, she says: "The worst part of it all has been feeling like death is right around the corner," says Nikkanen. "The good part is that I'm a changed person and I like who I am. I'm a lot more understanding and giving towards others. It has made me stronger."
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September/October 2003
INNER STRENGTH
By Irene Gentle
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If bad things happen in threes, Carolyn Nikkanen is due for a bit of a break right about now.
First there were her three marriages, one of which barely lasted a year, which floundered of the rocks of alcohol or incompatibility or some such thing.
And then, starting in 1992, there was the first of three cancers. Those would see her lose first a breast, then her hair and then the body she had honed into optimum shape pre-cancer despite the birth of her two daughters, now 24 and 18.
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But three's aren't always bad. There are also the three Mississauga businesses Nikkanen owns, for example - Carolyn's Model and Talent Agency Ltd., Carolyn's Kidz and Studio Talent Management.
Despite the hours of labour and the hard years that went in to building these, Nikkanen's business card is modest, listing her as an agent/photographer. She moonlights snapping Sunshine Boys for the Toronto Sun and is a spokesperson for the Canadian Cancer Society. She volunteers with its Look Good, Feel Better program and was, for years, a single mother to her daughters.
She entered the business on the other side of the camera - as a model. She was dazzling. And she was three.
It was a strange move, given that Nikkanen was raised in a strict Pentecostal household run by her grandparents after her parents split up. The faith instilled in her those years has never left her. She believes in and trusts not the new age, small `g' god of the modern spiritual movement, but the real old-fashioned deal. She prays and believes it works. She makes no apologies for that.
But as for the strict Pentecostal abolition of niceties such as make-up, music and dancing - that didn't stop her from getting before the camera as a tot and staying there, thank you very much. Today, at 46, she still models sometimes in fashion shows held as cancer research fundraisers.
The glamour may have begun early. But so did the work.
Nikkanen remembers child model work as being long and dull, something in which the appearance of happiness meant as much or more than the real thing.
As a child she worked through colds and fevers, smiling all the while. She managed to placate teachers, who didn't at the time approve very much of her skipping school to make a shoot.
“We didn't have a lot of money when I was younger.” She said. “My parents separated - there was a lot of stress. I was always sick.”
It sounds less than heavenly. Yet Nikkanen claims to have liked the work and she kept it up, eventually signing on to a famous agency. She was on her way.
Unlike many other models, she was always proactive, refusing to wait for anyone to call her up, going out and pounding on doors instead. And all the while she had her eye on a bigger prize.
“I always saw myself having my own business,” recalled Nikkanen. “I always thought, `If this was my business, this is how I would do it.”
In time she did have her own shop to run. And it was while she was struggling with it through the late `80's, early `90's recession, and while she was seeing her second marriage slide toward an inevitable dissolution, that she came face to face with her first bout with breast cancer.
She was 35 and busy, racing through life and running the now defunct Mrs. Mississauga pageant.
“I found a lump in my breast the size of an egg. You could actually see it,” she said.
She went to her doctor, who thought she would be fine but ordered a mammogram anyway.
She was not fine, and about a month later, she lost that breast to a mastectomy. “I felt I was in a movie watching myself. The first thing you always say is `Why me?''' said Nikkanen. “Then it's `My God, my kids, I won't see them grow up.'''
Then the brutally injured vanity pipes up. “And the other is `Who is ever going to love half a woman?''' she said. “That's the selfish part.”
At first she thought she would get reconstructive implant within six months. “Then I had the attitude that if a man didn't love me as I was, who needs them,” said Nikkanen defiantly.
But she did get that implant, and right about the six-month mark, as well. Before that, she had driven to the drug store to get an external implant to fill her bra while she went to work.
The loose implant was a source of fun for her. Vacuuming her business at the end of the day it would pop out of her bra and plop on the floor. She'd promptly pick it up and lob it at someone. “Flying boob,” she'd call out.
Surgery over, new implant in place, life returned to normal. Until 1995, when the cancer returned, this time in her lymph nodes. “I thought that was game over,” said Nikkanen.
It wasn't. But treating it did require six months of chemotherapy. The resulting hair loss was worse than losing her breast for the woman who had made her living since childhood in a charged, appearance-oriented industry.
“I remember lying on the couch and pulling at my hair and coming out in handfuls,” said Nikkanen.
The chemotherapy did a number on her energy, leaving her tired and drained. It dotted canker sores along her tongue, mouth and throat so that it hurt to talk.
“Walking across the road was an effort,” she said. “But I went to work every day.”
Soon, she rallied, again. She bought herself wigs and reveled in how little time it took to get herself ready and out the door. There was no shaving or waxing or plucking to worry about, no shampooing or blow-drying - just toss on a wig and go. In the hot summer months, she'd come home and yank the wig off, letting the coolness settle on her hare skin.
There were bad moments, of course, moments of fear and despair. But she got through them. A year after the chemotherapy, she walked down the aisle with husband No. 3. “It lasted one year,” she said. “It was a nightmare.”
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So soon he was out, but the business remained. Then in 2000, the cancer made it's third appearance, milder this time, but still all too present. She is cancer-free today but is still taking oral chemotherapy to stop the cancer from forming. It caused her to gain weight and dragged her through menopause three times, a dizzying ride.
She has also settled into her new Milton home, which is spacious and elegant and shared with her fourth husband (and last, she vows), her two children, tow dogs, and a cat. She is barefoot and wearing a casual summer dress with a sparkly pin that reads `model mom.' She is blonde and very pretty, expertly made up but still fresh and
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Carolyn works with staff at her busy Mississauga Agency.
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approachable. Her weight gain looks good on her, natural and earthy and warm.
She claims not to mind it, but she had liposuction recently to remove fat from her stomach. It made her feel a little bit better.
She has, through all this, learned how to take care of her health. She became an avid student of natural remedies and today takes 30 vitamins and herbs daily. She had reflexology performed on her while she was ill and found it so helpful, she became a practitioner herself.
She watches what she eats carefully and never fails to ask older people of hr acquaintance what their secret to health is.
Though she had no family history of cancer, she feels stress may have made her vulnerable. She ran her own business, which has grown from taking in $70,000 gross to about $1 million. The revolving door of husbands and boyfriends meant she was mostly a single mom, in charge of keeping a roof over the heads of her kids and herself.
Coming closer to death than most people want to three different times has reshaped her attitude and she gives talks on the change to cancer survivors and sufferers.
In words, it basically amounts to `don't sweat the small stuff.' But it feels much bigger than that in practice.
“You've got to have that positive attitude,” said Nikkanen. She wakes up smiling each day, glad to be there. When bad things happen, she knows it's just a bump in the road. She takes a longer view.
“Back when I was married to husband No. 2, I was probably a little shallow-minded maybe,” she said. Material things mattered to her. Now, “it's what you have in your heart. That's what success is built on.”
She believes that thinking good things will help bring them to fruition. Like her fourth husband, for example. Nikkanen feels comfortable with him and they have things in common. It is a fourth marriage for both of them and her kids and his son get along well. The couple share an identical birthday - same day, same year. But where she is motivated, ambitious and restless, he encourages her to slow down when she needs to. They balance each other.
“I have a great, wonderful man,” she said. “I just feel very happy and at peace. I know that life is very precious and you never know when the end is going to come. Tell your kids you love them every day. Tell your husband.”
She has learned through trial and error to trust her gut feelings and go with them. She has no time for attitudes and no inclination to get angry at things that don't matter. And she has learned to say no to demands that are too much for her. She is comfortable putting joy above duty on occasion, packing it all in and heading to the beach.
When people fall ill, she urges them to let people help. Accept their offers. Rest when you are tired. Fighting a life-threatening illness is no time for false pride.
But not everything has changed for Nikkanen. She is still driven. She is still the ambitious and precocious child who inherited her show biz flair from her musician father, now living in the United States. And she has maintained the motivation she learned from her strict, Pentecostal grandfather.
“If it's going to be, it's up to me,” Nikkanen quotes. “I never sat back and waited for things to happen. I made it happen.”
But these days, she also lives by these words, coined by a friend; you have to have something to love, something to cherish and something to look forward to.
She is currently writing a book about her struggle with cancer in the hopes of helping more people than she can reach with her current work with the CCS. But it's a slow go so far. “It's something of a touchy subject for me,” she said. “Even through this interview, I can get a little sad inside.”
Proof that her training as a child model had worked, it had been impossible to tell. She smiled and laughed throughout, curled up casually in an eggplant-colored leather chair. But she promises that she lets the emotions come out at other times.
“I'll be writing a chapter and I'll be crying.” Said Nikkanen feigning sobs. “Then I'll write more and I'll start to laugh.”
Her three-round fight has not taken away her fear of dying. But she has accomplished what she has wanted to and whenever death happens she will have left a legacy of hard work and laughter behind.
Still, she had a grandfather who lived until he was 103 and then died in his sleep.
That's her plan too.
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September 26, 2003
CANCER SURVIVOR HAPPY TO BE WALKING FOR A CURE
By Lisa Rainford
It was in 1992 that Carolyn Nikkanen discovered a lump in her breast.
Doctors removed it only to discover the lump was benign, but as a precaution, Nikkanen's physician suggested she have a mammogram. The mammogram detected malignancy within the breast. She was told she must have a mastectomy.
“I was 35 at the time and a single mom. I thought `what man would love me with one breast?' I felt like my life was over,” Nikkanen said.
She would have re-constructive surgery, but her troubles were far from over. The cancer returned three years later, this time in her lymph nodes. Of the 18 that were removed half were malignant, but fortunately the disease had not spread. Nikkanen underwent aggressive chemotherapy for six months.
“I lost my hair, wore wigs. I seemed to be O.K., but it came back again in 2000,” she said.
Doctors prescribed an oral form of chemotherapy. It's a drug that she takes every other day. She also keeps her stress level to a minimum only doing what she likes to do. Nikkanen swears by Floressence Tea and a slew of herbal medicines, which she strongly believes, is helping. She said she eats radically different than she used to before facing cancer. Her diet includes a lot of fruits and vegetables. Once in a while she'll fall off the band wagon, she admitted laughing, but most of the time she sticks to a strict diet.
Nikkanen is baffled as to why she has had to fight breast cancer. There is no history of the disease in her family, but she wouldn't change how her life has unfolded.
“You have to be confident. It's taught me a lot. It's made me a stronger, better person,” she said. “I like the person I am now more than the person I used to be.”
On Sunday, September 28, the Canadian Cancer Society hosts Taking Steps Against Breast Cancer, a 5-km walk in High Park to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. Not only is the walk to raise money and awareness, but it is also to celebrate the survivors, remember those who have lost their lives to the disease and to get together with friends and family for a fun community event.
For her part, Nikkanen is writing a book about her experience. She hopes it will serve as an inspiration to others facing cancer. She offers this advice:
“Do something you love, that gives you something to look forward to and to take care of. I try to do something for me each week,” she said.
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August 13, 1999
The Connection
MODEL MOM BEATS BREAST CANCER
By Michael Gennings
Carolyn Nikkanen has led a life of many twists and turns and still manages to have a successful modeling career and a business all her own.
Nikkanen owns and operates Carolyn's Model and Talent Agency in Mississauga and a new branch office in Toronto. She is one of the guest speakers at the Women with Vision Conference on Oct. 29 at Vacation Inn in Collingwood.
She has been involved with modeling since age three when her mother - also a model - enrolled her in the Estelle School of Modeling in Toronto.
For Nikkanen, 42, who spent her youth at formal schools and breaking into the modeling industry, hard work that paid off in 1981 when she won the Canadian model title.
By 1987, she was teaching the ins and outs of the industry at the Peel Board of Education and in 1988 launched her own agency.
A year later, Nikkanen founded the Mrs. Mississauga Pageant and the Miss Teen Pageant, shows she choreographed narrated, directed and produced. In recent years both pageants have fallen to the wayside as she focuses on her agency. And she still finds time to work as a photographer taking Sunshine Boy pictures for The Toronto Sun.
Over the years, the biggest change to the modeling industry, she explained, has been the shift from outward appearances to lifestyle. This, she added, means models can be any age. The oldest at her agency is in her 80's.
Nikkanen has a deep understanding about the value of a good lifestyle. The single mother of two girls faced a major blow in 1992 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 35.
Nikkanen had chemotherapy, a mastectomy and fought the deadly disease to the point of remission. Cancer struck her again only a few short years later in 1995, this time in the lymph nodes.
“You go through the emotional trauma and then realize you have to get through things and live,” she said.
Reading books on health, taking vitamins, exercising when she had the energy and focusing on running her business, helped her survive. Nikkanen said thinking positive helped her body feel better during this fight for her life.
On the home front, her two children had to deal with the fact Mom had cancer. Nikkanen said her youngest child, now 14, dealt with the illness the best.
“And that probably because she didn't fully understand what it was about, she said.
Nikkanen said during both ordeals, she wasn't prepared to crawl in a hole and die. She had children to look after and a business to run.
“You put on a façade for people and yourself and you have to believe everything will be okay, she said.
Life, she admits, has been good to her. Nikkanen said she owns her own house, drives a nice car and has owned a number of boats. She credits her success to not letting money blur the objective.
“I've never focused on doing things for money, but because I like and want to do them. I just find greed isn't good and that I've done well being honest,” she said.
Nikkanen is currently working on a television show about modeling, which she plans to host this fall on a Toronto cable channel.
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SHE'S A TRUE SURVIVOR...Carolyn Finley, center, with her mom Dee Meredith, right, and daughter Lindsey Macdonald
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Saturday November 8, 1997
The Toronto Sun
ACCENTUATING THE POSITIVE
By Rita DeMontis
The key to life's successes is based “quite simply on having a positive attitude,” says women on the Move nominee Carolyn Finley, owner of Carolyn's Model and Talent Agency in Mississauga.
A model from the age of three, Toronto born-and-bred Finley says attitude is everything. When it comes to running a highly successful company, her work efforts have been celebrated globally. Twice, she's beaten breast cancer.
Finley started her company 10 years agoduring
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the height of the recession. It was “about the worst possible time to start up anything.” She had very little capital - a paltry $300 - a small roster of dynamic talent, but the energy to fill 20 hour work days, weeks on end.
Today, her company has blossomed to include a “roster of 300 - everyone from babies to seniors,” who have appeared in print and television throughout the world.
Although not specific with the numbers - “we're in the half million profit range” - Carolyn's continues to grow, with a second office about to open in Toronto in a few weeks.
The future was very bright back in 1992 and Finley was busy with the Miss Mississauga teen beauty pageant when “out of the blue, I discovered a lump the size of an egg in my left breast.”
An immediate visit to her doctor provided some relief - her lump was aspirated and found to be benign.
But a routine mammogram, followed by a surgical biopsy, confirmed that her entire breast was malignant. She had a type of breast cancer called insitu carcinoma.
In the midst of a beauty pageant, with her marriage collapsing and with two small girls needing their mommy, Finley had a radical mastectomy.
“When the doctor initially gave me the news, I went into shock and I felt like I was watching myself in a movie. When I stumbled out of his office, I couldn't even find my car. Here I was, only 35 years old and I just couldn't believe this was happening to me,” says Finley.
The surgery left her with the sensation that her chest had been sewn to her stomach and in much discomfort. “But I had responsibilities with my family and my business. And my children needed me more than ever.”
Finley found solace in “my mom, Dee, and my daughters, Lindsey and Kristin, and friends who did everything for me.”
She learned to heal from within. “I realized how absolutely essential a positive attitude is; it's attitude that helps the body heal.”
Her attitude helped her overcome the worst of the cancer. Business grew. “Toronto is a very good commercial market, a real people city; currently, there's 40 productions happening all at the same time.”
Her health improved. “I got back to feeling like my old self again and I wasn't going to let anything get in my way.”
But the cancer returned two years ago. Finley, a strong advocate of regular breast self-examinations, found another lump under her left arm. Surgery immediately followed and of the 18 lymph nodes removed, nine proved to be malignant.
This time, an aggressive six-month round of chemotherapy was prescribed. Daughter Lindsey, who now works with her mother, admits, “It was a very tough time for her. She had sores in her mouth and down her throat so had she couldn't speak. She lost all her hair and she bloated up from all the drugs. She was in pain. Yet, I never once heard her complain. And she maintained a good healthy attitude that really helped her persevere."
Finley sought alternative therapy in the form of vitamins and herbs and found a tremendous difference.
“I bounced back quickly and to this day I'm a very strong advocate of a healthy life-style that includes vitamin and herb therapy.”
Today, Finley's beautiful blond hair is all back, as is her fabulous figure. She says she feels terrific.
She's putting together plans for a television show, like The Beautiful You cable show she hosted a few years ago.
“The mandate will be a show based on health, wellness and beauty.”
She offers support to other cancer survivors and volunteers with various charitable organizations and “always with the cancer society.”
In September, she remarried and “ I'm back at the helm. I've a full plate and I'm happy. Outlook is everything; attitude is a lifesaver. Of the two choices we have in life, you can either stay at the bottom or work yourself back up. “I've gone back to the top.”
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Sunday May 9, 1993
The Toronto Sun
HEAL THYSELF
A positive attitude is half the battle
“Cancer is a physical illness, but living with cancer is more like a journey.” That's what Carolyn Finley found after having a mastectomy following a diagnosis of breast cancer. The 36 year old model and modelling agency owner, credits high self-esteem, motivation and a positive attitude are top priorities at Finley's modelling school. So Finley dug real deep and drew on all her knowledge and strength to get through the turmoil.
`I'm on my way up'
She had her tears, some bad days and then decided to get on with handling her dilemma. “I figured it could be a lot worse, and tomorrow would hold a brighter future - and it has.”
To help her through her healing days, she purchased a 33-ft cabin cruiser last summer: “When I'm on that boat - even if it's dry docked - it makes me feel so good and so happy. It's the greatest stress release there is and that's what everyone needs.”
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'...your outlook on life is everything' Carolyn Finley told her breast cancer story to other women to become more aware of the importance of early detection and a positive attitude.
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Two healthy daughters, aged 8 and 13, lots of supportive friends and family, and her successful business have also been key in getting her through it all. And regular mammogram's and checkups give her reassurance
“It's been the hardest year of my life but it's true what people say. You have to hit bottom before you hit the top - and I'm on my way up.”
“Women are afraid they won't be loved, that they're not whole when they lose a breast,” she adds. “But it's what you are and not what you have that's important.”
“And your outlook on life is everything.”
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