S u s a n Wi l k i n g H o r a n
& The Iconic Animated Trailblazer
BETTY BOOP
Words By Bec Doyle
I had the pleasure of speaking with a truly inspirational woman, Susan Wilking Horan, to discuss her latest book, “Betty Boop’s Guide to a Bold and Balanced Life: Fun Fierce Fabulous Advice Inspired by the Animated Icon.” Susan is a businesswoman, attorney, wellness advocate, author, and threetime cancer survivor. Yes, you read that right! And much like the infamous Betty Boop, with whom Susan shares a deep connection, Susan has courageously used her own harrowing experience and wellness journey to empower others. In Susan’s words: “Strong women lift each other up.”
for… a cancer which usually strikes people in their 60’s or 70’s.” After extensive and tireless research Susan discovered this particular cancer ran in her family. “So I started learning all of these different things about cancer. How one of the greatest risk factors is heredity. As I started to speak to groups, and talk to people and get involved as a motivational speaker, either people wanted to know how to prevent cancer, or for those who had it, about treatment and survival.” This inspired Susan to write her first book “The Single Source Cancer Course”, which was broken down into two volumes. She explains the goal of writing these books was to try and get all the information that anyone diagnosed with cancer could ever possibly want, in one place. “When you’re diagnosed with cancer, you do not have time. You don’t have time to do a lot of research. You need to know what to do, you need to have a plan. So that was my goal, to offer all the information that I knew I ever wanted to get, in one place.”
“Betty had her beginnings when everything was going wrong in the world, she taught people at that time how to face it, how to fight it and how to survive it - and she’s still doing the same today”
Susan explains it wasn’t long after she began practicing as an attorney that she was diagnosed with colon cancer. Susan says she was athletic, young, slim, a vegetarian and a non-smoker, but began to experience symptoms that she couldn’t make sense of. After the first Doctor laughed and dismissed her concerns, she seeked out a second opinion. “I went to another doctor because my intuition told me... I knew something was wrong,” she says. And unfortunately, after the appropriate testing, she was right. Susan credits this moment as the beginning of her journey as a wellness advocate, “that was a cancer that was totally unexpected and I was completely unprepared 16 M. CITIZEN MAGAZINE | ISSUE 03
After beating colon cancer, Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer, and although it did not run in her family she was at greater risk of developing breast cancer due to a condition called fibrosis. “Women with that kind of breast tissue are more susceptible to
