My Fight for Life: Theresa’s Story
A small growth, a terrifying word, and a woman’s struggle for survival begins
Despite the summer-like weather, my body shivered uncontrollably. A roar filled my ears, and my mind and soul recoiled at the reality of the situation I found myself in. My hands trembled so violently that the words on the paper they held seemed to swim before my eyes.
But one word of the report stubbornly refused to join the others in their macabre life-altering dance. That one word seemed to grow until it seemed to be the only word left on the sheet before me. Even the tears falling from my eyes could not dim its intensity.
“... malignant ...”
May 21, 2004: Two weeks before my son’s wedding, one day before family would begin arriving from out of town, minutes before I was scheduled to leave work and head home for three weeks of vacation. In a mere moment of time, one word, one awful word, instantly changed my life forever.
On that day, I joined more than 211,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer each year. I joined the one in seven women diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. Just a few months shy of my 50th birthday, I was convinced that the diagnosis given to me on that day meant an early end to my life.
I discovered the lump myself a few weeks after my annual exam with my nurse practitioner and three weeks before my annual mammogram was scheduled. I had convinced myself that the mass that I felt in my left breast was a cyst. It seemed to appear suddenly: One day it didn’t exist, the next day it was the size of a large walnut.
I’d had cysts in my breast before, and I knew that another cyst was nothing to worry about. But a nagging sense of dread tugged at me each time I touched the lump.
My routine mammogram led to a not-so-routine ultrasound, followed by an urgently scheduled MRI. Those tests confirmed my suspicion that a cyst was present, with one wicked little twist: A 2.5 centimeter malignant tumor was growing inside me and intertwined with the cyst.
From the moment the radiologist called after the MRI to advise me to make an appointment with my surgeon, my life began to spiral out of control. I felt as if I were on a speeding locomotive hurtling down the tracks toward a destination not of my choosing, traveling at a speed that left me dizzy and queasy.
In the movies, the heroine escapes and lives happily ever after. Escape, for me however, was not an option. I was along for the ride — the long, long ride. My only hope was that death wasn’t waiting for me at the end of the tracks.
A temporary madness
I am not totally unfamiliar with cancer. Melanoma took my father’s life when he was only 34. My mother survived her own breast cancer diagnosis 18 years ago, and remains healthy to this day. And my paternal family medical history looks like a minefield littered with cancer casualties.
Despite all this, the news that I had cancer stunned me. My illusions of permanence, invincibility and immortality evaporated like summer rain on hot asphalt. For the first time, my own mortality stared at me, cold and unblinking. I was paralyzed. I felt as if I was having an out-of-body experience.
One moment I would be totally disassociated from the reality surrounding me. The next moment, without warning, I would be slammed back into the body that had betrayed me with such force that it would jolt me to the very center of my being.
The sensation was almost painful — my heart would begin to pound, my hands would begin to shake, and tears would well in my eyes without warning. Thoughts would begin to slam about in the confines of my skull like the steel ball of a pinball machine. And then, mercifully, the numbing shock would return.
There is a certain insanity that takes hold when you receive such life-altering news. My descent into that temporary madness began the morning after news of my diagnosis was delivered to me.
After a night in which sleep did not come, I finally rose and started my normal morning ritual. Maybe my life would regain focus after a nice long, hot shower, I thought wearily. I stepped into the shower and allowed the water, as hot as I could stand it, to course over me. The steam and heat seemed to penetrate and melt my frozen emotions. I began to cry, then sob. Big, gulping, body-wracking sobs. My tears mixed with the hot water as I began to mourn all that I was about to lose.
My son was getting married. Would I live to see his children born? My daughter had just gotten engaged. What about her wedding? Would I live to see my granddaughter grow into a woman? How would I tell my children? My mom? How would I tell my boss and co-workers? How would my husband cope if I died? I was not ready to die, there were so many things I wanted to do.
God, why me? How could I tell my children? How?
I cried until I could cry no more. Spent, I stepped from the shower and dried myself off and began to dress. I had so much to do. I didn’t have time for this. We had to be at the airport to pick up my aunt and mother, and I needed to buy groceries. My diagnosis would just have to wait. I left the house, but the madness followed me out the door.
Walking through the store, I, normally rational and normally compassionate, once again gave in to the insanity. I began to take notice of other women, especially older women. That’s when the really crazy thoughts began to take hold.
How did these old women escape the sentence that I was facing? I wanted to grow old like them! I wanted to be gray and wrinkled and slightly stooped. What did they do differently in their lives than I did in mine? How had they been allowed to enjoy such a long life when mine was being threatened? It wasn’t fair! I boiled with anger and resentment.
I was astonished by the emotion I felt toward these unwitting strangers: gut-wrenching anger. I was mortified by my thoughts until I realized that I was angry at the cancer and that anger was being directed at complete strangers because it had nowhere else to go. I knew I needed to get a grip — and fast. I didn’t want my ability to calmly inform my family to be jeopardized by irrational thinking. But, how could I possibly tell them?
A little help from my friends
My husband was the first to know. He just held me and reassured me that we’d make it through. But I could tell he was shocked and scared. We decided that we could not tell our children until the wedding was over. I didn’t want anything to cloud such a happy occasion. It would be difficult to keep this news from them. There would be questions. My first appointment with the surgeon and consultation at Stanford were set the week before the wedding. But it was important to me to keep them clueless and happy for a little while longer.
My mom and aunt arrived at the airport as scheduled. I waited until after dinner to break the news. They cried when I told them. Both breast cancer survivors, they knew what lay ahead for me. I may be a fully grown adult, but in my mom’s eyes, I was still her baby.
Three days after my diagnosis, I sat on the exam table of a Stockton surgeon, Dr. Christopher Hudlin. Movie-star handsome and highly skilled, Dr. Hudlin had been an acquaintance for years. My 20-plus years in the medical field did have its benefits. I did not have to think twice about who would form my medical team. After calling his office, I was scheduled an appointment the very next day.
My own little entourage accompanied me: My mother, my aunt and my good friend Robbie. They sought to offer me support as the doctor first examined me and then inserted a biopsy needle into my breast, not once, but twice, in order to gain a sample of the tumor invading my breast. As gruesome as that sounds, it didn’t hurt as much as I’d imagined.
Dr. Hudlin had hugged me warmly when I entered his office, but he was solemn as he outlined the potential plans for my treatment: lumpectomy, sentinel node biopsy, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. He didn’t disagree when I expressed my desire to seek consultation with cancer specialists at Stanford University.
And then, he took my hands in his and looked me straight in the eyes. “You are going to beat this, Theresa,” he said.
More questions than answers
Exactly one week after my initial diagnosis, a valet parked my car and my mother and I entered the Stanford University Cancer Clinic in Palo Alto. Although I’d only been living with the news for a week, it felt like a lifetime had passed and I was already so weary. My family, with the exception of my husband, thought we were visiting friends in the Bay Area. I hated lying, but it was important to me to keep them in the dark a little longer. There would be more than enough time for them to fret and worry.
The brand new building at Stanford was simultaneously opulent and utilitarian. It had light cherry wood furniture, marble floors and fountains in the courtyard that seemed to calm and reassure. By contrast, patients walked through the lobby, bald, pale and walking as if bone-weary, with hot pink respirators on their face to destinations that I could not see from my perch on the lobby chair. I shivered as I wondered if I, too, would one day take the same walk that they were on. My walk had only begun, and they were on a path that chilled me — this disease called cancer was forcing them to walk that fine line between life and death.
The Breast Cancer Clinic at Stanford is a study in efficiency. I was poked and prodded and questioned by a host of doctors, professors of radiology, nurse practitioners, student doctors and surgeons. They examined each breast carefully. They probed for obscure, swollen lymph nodes that might be lurking in my chest, neck and outside edges of my breast. They drove their fingers so far into my armpits that I thought they might push their fingers clear through to my shoulder blade. Each of them asked the same questions:
When did you first notice the lump?
Do you have any discharge from your nipples?
Any changes in weight, appetite or bowels?
Do you have any bone pain?
Is the lump bigger now than when you first discovered it?
Is it bigger since the biopsy?
After three hours, I was finally allowed to dress while the team conferred and discussed my case in another room.
After taking a short break outside, Mom and I returned to the exam room. One of the surgeons and the nurse practitioner that had taken my medical history walked back in. They asked if I had any questions, which I thought was ironic. It felt almost like a trick question. I wanted information — methodical, logical information that would snatch me from this craziness and set my world back in order. Were there right questions and wrong questions? Were there questions that I could ask that would unlock some mystery and set things right? Were we playing the medical version of “Jeopardy?”
“I’ll take Cancer for $200, Alex.”
I was, according to the surgeon, an interesting medical case. He followed that comment with the warning that being interesting, in terms of medicine, was not always a good thing.
And so they began.
I had a malignant tumor, left breast. I had a suspicious lymph node deep in my armpit. I had a lousy family history filled with cancer that may require genetic testing for the BRCA gene, the genetic version of a cancerous time bomb. I was a candidate for a lumpectomy, but the tumor was large enough that quite a bit of the breast would need to be removed. In their opinion, a mastectomy should be considered. If I decided to have genetic testing and it was positive, then I should consider a double mastectomy and ovary removal as a prophylactic measure against future cancers.
A cancer ‘to do’ list
They felt certain I would need to have six months of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation therapy. I was told I had to immediately stop using the hormone patches I’d been using for several years to control hot flashes. And, finally, once the tumor was removed, it would be tested for hormone receptors, staging, grading, and a bunch of other tests that I didn’t understand. This would help my doctors, my oncologists, decide on the treatment that would be best for me.
The two tried to be patient as I tried to understand the information they were lobbing at me like grenades. I could feel my brain start to shut down. I was becoming one of those patients — the ones that hear only 10 percent of the bad news being delivered to them. When I needed my brain the most, it just decided to turn off.
They offered help, they offered to talk to my doctors. I can’t say they offered hope. Maybe they did; maybe I just didn’t hear them.
I didn’t ask for odds, in fact, I really didn’t want to know the odds. I’ve never liked playing the odds, I’ve never been a risk-taker. And, as they continued to talk, I tried desperately to fashion their information into a neat, tidy little list, kind of a cancer “to do” list:
1. Have breast removed.
2. Have chemo, get radiation treatments.
3. Get well.
4. Live happily to be a very old woman who dies in her sleep at the ripe old age of 98.
However, organizing my thoughts was a struggle. Each time I tried, it was like making a house out of playing cards. With each new piece of information, the whole thing threatened to come tumbling down.
So I just began to shut down. Bad news. Bad news followed by more bad news. Where was my brain when I needed it? Out taking a walk, acting like Scarlet O’Hara, taking on a southern drawl.
“Fiddley-dee! I’ll just think about it tomorrow.”
The doctor and nurse practitioner would only dispense information that day. Decisions, they said, were mine to make. Mine alone.
How could I?
These decisions were so monumental that I didn’t know how I could possibly make them! How was I to make a choice? Mastectomy versus lumpectomy, traditional lymph node dissection versus sentinel node biopsy, radiation, chemotherapy, genetic testing. What if I made the wrong choice? What if I made a choice that led to my death instead of sparing my life?
It was too much, it was too darned much.
How could I possibly make a decision?
For more than a year, Theresa Larson, the News-Sentinel’s director of administration, has been fighting breast cancer. This is the story of her ordeal.
Signs of breast cancer
Signs of possible breast cancer:
Lump: Usually single, firm, may or may not be painful
Inverted nipple: Not present in previously normal breast, also nipple that changes shape or becomes crusty
Change in skin’s appearance: Skin has appearance of orange peal, sometimes accompanied by swelling
Superficial veins: Skin surface veins on one breast become more prominent than other
Skin dimpling: Depression occurring in a localized area of the breast surface
Nipple discharge: May be clear, milky or rust colored
Source: "Breast Cancer Myths and Facts", Eva Singletary, M.D., FACS, Alice Judkins, RN, MS.
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