Breast Friends: A Collection of Inspiring Testamonials from Breast Cancer Survivors

By Bonnie Walsh Davidson

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 15, 2000
• ISBN: 9781462831685

Bonnie Walsh Davidson

Breast Friends is the name associated with the online support group on America Online. This book is a small sampling of the hundreds of women who have sought support and encouragement during their battle with breast cancer.

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Copyright © 2000 by Bonnie Walsh Davidson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

BONNIE

DEBBIE

LORI

JENNIFER

KATHIE

REGINA

HELENE

CHRISTINE

TERESA

PEG

JANIE

MOGGIE

FAYE

GLORIA

ILENE

MAUREEN

MARYANN

LINDA

DR. ED

MARILYN

DIANE

TAMMY

ANNE

NANCY

BARBARA

KATHY

SUSAN

PAUL

JEAN

DIANA

ESTER

DOROTHY

AMY

PAT

BETTY

SHERRY

GAIL

DEB

ROBIN

PAM

MARY

LOUISE

CAROL

CATHY

ROBERTA

VIRGINIA

ELYSE

Y0LANDA

OPAL

SANDY

DARLENE

EMILY

ELLIE

THE OTHER WOMEN OF THE BOARD

DEDICATION

To my husband and very breast friend, Paul, whose love kept me from the abyss.

INTRODUCTION

Being diagnosed with breast cancer is probably the single most horrific fear a woman has about her health. It isn’t just the thought that they might lose their life, but also their femininity as well. When a woman has cancer, it not only has a devastating effect on her own life, but those who love her. Nearly everyone knows someone, or knows of someone, who died of breast cancer. In women’s minds the disease and treatments for it are inextricably linked to disfigurement, suffering, and death.

When I was diagnosed in June of 1995(on the anniversary of my mother’s death from squamous cell carcinoma), my first thought was I am going to die. Then I went home to face my three young children and I realized I had to fight this beast. I chose to fight, but I needed powerful weapons. Those weapons came in the form of a team of dedicated physicians, a backbone I didn’t realize I had, the unconditional love of my husband, the ever-optimistic hope of family and friends, information, and an online group of supportive women.

There are support groups for just about everything these days. They serve an important purpose in not only providing needed information, but primarily as a source of emotional support. Some people have limited time and inclination to attend regular meetings of these support groups. Others need an immediate source of help, perhaps in the middle of the night when our fears are paramount. The online support groups, message boards, and chats fill that need for many people.

My husband introduced me to the Internet and America Online the day of my diagnosis. It was a Friday, and I did not want to wait the weekend for information. We discovered the Better Health forum.

I received a great deal of information and emotional support through a sisterhood of courageous women who had been there, done that. The women I have met online have given their hearts and souls to guiding those like myself through the terrifying minefield called breast cancer, while continuing to wage their own battle. You will meet some of these women. This is a culmination, an evolution that has led to survival.

Over the past year I have been compiling information to include on my web site PinkRibbon.com. As an educator, I value the opportunity to educate as a means of empowerment. As I collected personal experience stories, I was limited by space constraints to just a representative few. I felt that a book length medium would give newly diagnosed women and those battling the disease more inspirational stories to offer them hope and encouragement.

Breast Friends is the name associated with the online support group on America Online. This book is a small sampling of the hundreds of women who have sought support and encouragement during their battle with breast cancer. I have selected a few women, whose circumstances make them unique.

I have spent countless hours online with these and similar women whose courage and willingness to help others is truly inspiring. Pockets of women have met in locations across the country for informal lunches as well as the annual Celebration of Life, a gathering organized, by one of the more active and devoted board members, the late Debby Gregory.

I would like to take you into this world of courageous women, living with, surviving, and, unfortunately, dying of breast cancer. You will meet young women, old women; women who have undergone chemotherapy while pregnant; women who chose propylactic mastectomy because of a strong family history; women who won the battle only to watch their daughter relive their nightmare.

This is not only about women. Family members have stopped by as well. We have had several family members post on behalf of their loved ones. We have had children write in fear and terror, afraid to further burden their mothers. Sisters. Husbands. Mothers. Daughters. Brothers. Anyone who has in any way been touched by this disease.

Not all has been rosy. We have had periods of dissent, from inside the board as well as outside. As any group of women will, we have our squabbles. Quacks have found the board and tried to sell products as well as alternative lifestyles.

Yet 99% of the board is positive. Marilyn, the board matriarch, personally welcomes every ‘newbie’ condemned to be part of our sisterhood; and supplies and endless source of information and links on breast cancer, as well as any other subject for that matter. Debbie inspired us to come together for the first time, organizing the first annual celebration of Life gathering in Las Vegas in October 1998, just months before she lost her own battle.

This book is about women who are real, vulnerable, and sometimes painfully honest. They have stared death in the face and come out the other side. Many women find themselves spending a good part of their time on the board initially, taper off, and disappear for a while. Most continue to return, because we never quite put it behind us.

Some people stop by, leaving barely a ripple. A lot of women come to the board while they are awaiting biopsy results. We celebrate with them when there is a negative report. Others stop by if they are doing research for a school project, whether a child or college-age student. There are mixed feelings concerning surveys, pro and con.

In the past year I have discovered a second breast cancer support group on AOL, the THRIVE-JUST US board. I had included these women as well.

One board member described it well, We are like wind in the willows. You have a circle of people around you, you cross your arms and just fall. You get gently pushed around the circle. Of course you have to have complete trust in your circle.

Another said, We are each of us and angel with only one wing. And we can fly only by embracing one another.

We are white women, black women, Oriental women. Every one is without color and ethnic background. We sign our first names only, perhaps our state, maybe our age. The only way we identify ourselves is through our diagnoses and surgeries. There is no evidence of prejudice here. There is freedom in anonymity.

Some women give a hint of their philosophy of life in their signature line under their name, but most often it reflects a new outlook on life as a result of their journey.

My signature line reads, Life is what happens when you are making other plan. John Lennon.

Please, allow me to introduce you to my Breast Friends.

BONNIE

My fortieth birthday loomed on the horizon. I felt every year of it. I was exhausted all the time. I was overweight. I felt unable to cope with the demands of my family life. I was an ordinary stay-at-home mom. While not suited to juggling the demands of a career and children, I chose long ago to remain at home with my children. I poured my energies into my volunteer work with the Girl Scouts, moving from troop leader up to area manager, a position that turned out to involve the scope of a full time job. I was a substitute teacher for a while until a car accident sidelined me in 1992. I never seemed to be able to bounce back from that. I was frustrated by my lack of stamina, chronic inflammation of my saliva glands, and arthritic symptoms.

Exhausting the scope of my private physician who suspected allergies, I was referred to an ENT specialist at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. He worked with me for almost a year before he started to suspect a connective tissue disorder. In January of 1995 he referred me to a rheumatologist who finally had some answers for me.

It was not all in my head. It was not allergies. I had a problem. And it had a name. Sjogren’s Syndrome, a sister disease to, and often seen hand in hand with lupus. It is an autoimmune disorder manifesting itself in many forms in different patients. Both chronic disorders are difficult to diagnose, sometimes taking years, and equally difficult to treat using trial and error. Sometimes serious disabilities develop, making it impossible to function normally in society.

I was relieved to have a name for the problem that had plagued me for five years and probably longer. I was fortunate to have a mild case. The rheumatologist was more than understanding and immediately prescribed anti-inflammatories. While using trial and error to seek the perfect dose, I was delivered a blow that left me reeling, making SS and lupus pale in comparison (at least in my eyes).

For my fortieth birthday in April at the recommendation of my gynecologist, I added a mammogram to my yearly work-up. It is quite common at forty to begin screening mammograms. I went willingly as a firm believer in preventative health care.

A week after my first mammogram, I was called back by the surgeon’s office. There was a thickening. Probably nothing, but a repeat mammogram was in order. The repeat mam indicated that the thickening was not an illusion. A sonogram or ultrasound was done. As the surgeon closely examined my internal tissue, she explained that very often malignancies appear on sonograms as a star burst type mass with a shadowy tail.

Like this I said pointing to the image on the screen before me.

Yes, she said.

You think this is malignant? I asked.

It concerns me. Evasive enough to cover her for malpractice, I supposed, but definitive enough to instill terror in my heart.

Let’s do a core biopsy. She explained that she would insert a relatively large-gage needle to extract a core of tissue, much like the bulb planter used by gardeners to remove a plug of dirt, though on a much smaller scale.

She cautioned me that small tumors, she estimated mine at 5mm, are sometimes hard to pinpoint in a core biopsy. A negative result was not necessarily a confident analysis. An excisional biopsy would follow.

I left the office in shock. I was there a total of seven hours as they diligently tried to assess my situation. How was I going to cope with waiting over the weekend for a report?

I don’t remember driving myself the short distance home.

I was lucky I didn’t run into anything with my eyes flooded with tears. I stopped at my husband’s office for some comfort, but his car was gone. I had to go home to face my kids, who had beat me home from school.

I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I didn’t want to get them all upset with me. I mumbled hello and sought the solitude of my bedroom, hiding behind my sunglasses as I went through the family room.

Unfortunately, my kids were not as oblivious as I would have liked on that day. My 14-year-old daughter, Robyn followed me upstairs and pounded on the door, demanding to be let in. At the sight of my ravaged face, she wanted to know what was wrong. I gave her some invented story about a Girl Scout problem.

I had underestimated my daughter. The next thing I know my husband is walking into the bedroom. While he occasionally stops by on his lunch hour for one errand or another, sometimes even treating me to lunch out, coming home at four o’clock in the afternoon was unheard of.

I fell into his arms, gasping for breath as I sobbed like I had never sobbed before.

What happened? Robyn called me. She said you were really upset and thought I should come home.

All the way home I had been thinking how I was going to break the news to him. Build up to it gradually. Try to remain optimistic. Now it all came pouring out. No build up. Cut right to the chase. I have breast cancer. No optimism in that.

My normally unflappable husband had trouble taking that in. He knew I was going for the repeat mammogram, but hadn’t given much credence to it. He looked like he was in shock, much like I felt.

I explained all the indications the surgeon had seen on my ultrasound. I know they know from experience what ‘feels’ wrong to them. I got the distinct impression I was not going to be one of the lucky ones.

We’ll have to tell the kids. They are waiting downstairs, wondering what is going on. he said.

I think we should wait until we have the results of the biopsy. There is no need to get them upset.

Robyn already suspects the truth. When you told her the story about crying about a Girl Scout problem, she knew it wasn’t the truth. She went downstairs and looked in your DayRunner to see where you have been. She saw the name of a doctor. Knowing it was not your usual doctor, she looked it up in the telephone book. She saw the listing as a breast surgeon. That’s when she called me. She said, ‘I think Mom has breast cancer.’

I found her resourcefulness amazing. Whatever possessed her to do that. She usually ignored me at best, mostly barely tolerated me. Here she was worried enough to call her father at work.

Making an effort to pull myself together, we went to face the kids. I was shaking. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. In a very controlled voice, Paul explained where I had been, that a problem was suspected; that I had a biopsy, but nothing was definite.

The kids were stunned. Robyn became withdrawn. John was full of questions. Lisa was scared stiff. All three lined up on the couch, awaiting a firing squad, having to deal with more than any child should have to deal with.

Paul answered all their questions to the best of his ability. Every once in a while, one of them snuck a furtive glance in my direction. I don’t clearly remember much else. We were interrupted by the return of our friends, who were staying with us while retrieving their daughter from college. I had left for my