Breast Cancer Awareness Month is in October, and I always like to write a column for it. I have discovered, in the last few years, that being away at the beginning of the month means the month gets away from me, so this year, I’m writing it early.
This is not the usual get-a-mammogram column, although you certainly should if it is indicated by guidelines and your doctor. This column is a tale of hope. You see, this coming April, I will become a 20-year breast cancer survivor. I can remember in stark relief when it didn’t seem as if I’d survive 20 minutes because I had some medical side road trips unrelated to the cancer.
Twenty years. It’s a long time and an amazing thing. There was a time when few women survived breast cancer, when the disease wasn’t talked about and when the cause of death was listed as “a long illness,’ as if mentioning the words breast cancer would make them contagious. When Betty Rollin wrote the seminal book “First, You Cry,” it was about her reaction to finding out in the 1970s that she had breast cancer and had no one to talk about it with. Now there are support groups for young survivors, older survivors and every permutation in between.
Part of the reason that I, and so many others, are able to be survivors and thrivers is medical research. In a previous life, I was a medical writer and editor in Pittsburgh. I interviewed pathologist Dr. Edwin Fisher, who with his brother, Bernard, conducted the clinical trials that indicated that lumpectomies were as effective as mastectomies in the cases where they were indicated. I remember Dr. Fisher saying that the real heroes were the women who enrolled in the clinical trial, not knowing if they were putting their own lives at risk by having a lumpectomy instead of mastectomy, the standard of care at the time. Several years after speaking with Dr. Fisher, I was so grateful to these women, as I was able to make that choice with confidence.
No battle with cancer is easy and there are no sure things. Any doctor will tell you of patients they thought would do well who did not, and of those they thought would not survive who did. There is much about medicine that is an art and not a science, although we continue to learn more and more.
As I approach the 20-year mark, I am grateful for the world-class care I received and continue to receive, the new drugs which have lowered the risk of recurrence, my parents and friends who were along for the wild ride, and my beloved husband, who never let me see him sweat, no matter what the doctors told him. I am grateful for the women who went before me. To those who still have the journey ahead, know that there is hope, real hope, that you’ll have your own 20 years, and more. I don’t plan to stop here.