My saga with breast cancer came as a total surprise. I am a nurse and this doesn’t happen to us. We take care of people with cancer, and now I’m hearing those dreaded words myself.
It all started out so routinely in January 2004. Routine checkups with Dr. Weaver, routine mammograms scheduled. I was called a few days later and told the mammogram was questionable and needed to be repeated. As I sat there waiting for the technician to tell me I could go, I got a feeling of something not quite right. I knew I was in trouble when Dr. Ramsmeyer came in himself and told me I needed an ultrasound. OK, I thought, they are just being too serious with all of this. I proceeded to have the ultrasound, and the technician suddenly got quiet and left the room. There was Dr. Ramsmeyer again telling me I needed to see a surgeon that day. “Now wait a minute guys, I just came in for a repeat mammogram and now you’re telling me I need a surgeon.” Well guess what I saw? My surgeon.
Everyone needs to keep me on speed dial. You just never know what you might be facing when you get up in the morning. Dr. Shreck scheduled me for bilateral breast biopsies, which came back positive cancer in both breasts. Now how can that be? I remember thinking. I never felt anything with self exams. Besides, I barely had breasts. How could cancer get in there? Dr. Shreck explained the lumps were deep in the breast tissue and couldn’t be felt. The mammogram is what detected them.
So I underwent bilateral lumpectomies and a life port placement. I started chemotherapy with Cancer Care of Enid and Dr. Craig Reitz. I still was in a lot of denial about my situation. I had a family and a job. I didn’t feel sick, how could I have cancer? The type of cancer I had Dr. Reitz told me was a “mean” cancer, fast growing. It was hormone positive, meaning I could not be on hormone replacement to help symptoms of menopause. If you take chemo, you’re going to go through menopause.
I felt pretty doomed to this situation. I lost my hair, my eyelashes and eyebrows. Didn’t have to shave my legs for almost a year.
Depression took over. I continued to work at the Surgery Center. But when I got home I felt sick, and the medication to help with the nausea made me sleep. I remember lying I bed and seeing myself in the mirror, wondering if this is how I’ll look lying in my casket.
I did get angry. I knew if I didn’t fight, then cancer was going to win. I have three children who mean the world to me, and they are more important than giving up on life, so I stood firm and fought. After chemo was completed I started radiation treatments with Dr. Erbh. There is no pain or nausea with radiation, just an overwhelming fatigue. But I did it, I survived cancer. Cancer destroys a lot, self image, self confidence and assurance. That is why I compared it to the devil. It didn’t kill me, but it still took something from me. My marriage of 34 years ended, so feelings of failure as a wife and a woman are there all the time. But I have my children and grandchildren, and I have friends who al-ways are there for me. I still am working at Surgery Center and Minor Emergency. One of my co-workers gave me words of thought one day when I was feeling down: “Understand how beautifully God has added one more day in your life, not because you need it, but because someone else needs you.”
Kathy Snowden, Enid
