Into these normal paradigms I bring Chris, a woman I’d never call normal. She’d kick my butt if I did. I was lucky enough to meet Chris virtually a few years ago on a local mom’s message board (that’s where I met Kathy too. Pattern?). We’ve talked a lot over the last few years about breast cancer and Chris was one of Ashley’s truest friends – Chris was there from before her diagnosis and until literally, the end. I am grateful that Chris has allowed me to share some of her story here and I hope you are as amazed as I am. It’s a long story and I’ve cut out a lot of good stuff! I will post three installments today, tomorrow, and Thursday.
In November of 1993, Chris was scratching her chest and felt a lump. “CRAP! CANCER!” she thought, because her great grandmother and grandmother both had breast cancer. “Nah. No way. Twenty-eight year olds don’t get cancer,” she rationalized. So when her routine ob/gyn visit came around, she told herself that if the doctor says something, she’ll worry. If he doesn’t, then it’s all fine. He didn’t find it, Chris says, mostly because you couldn’t feel it when she was lying down. August of the following year, Chris had a vivid dream that she lost her hair due to cancer. Vain as any woman in her 20s, this was disturbing enough to prompt her to call her doctor. He told her it was probably all in her head, but he’d send her for a mammogram and ultrasound.
The ultrasound technician couldn’t find the lump and Chris told her she could only find it sitting up. Chris sat up, and the tech found what Chris describes as “an octopus in my top right breast.” A week later she had a wire localization biopsy which Chris describes as being like “a mammogram, but the plates had holes in them so they could insert a wire by the mass.” She was sedated but awake and saw them put her tumor in a jar.
After the surgery, when Chris was in recovery with her mom and her husband, the doctor walked in told them it was cancer. Her mom cried, her husband fell back into a wall and Chris stayed cool and sarcastic. “Well shit,” she said, “I just paid a fortune to get my hair cut. What now?” Next came a lumpectomy and axillary dissection to check the lymph nodes under her arm. This was Chris’ first surgery, successful by all measures. It was a one centimeter by one centimeter tumor and surgeon was able to remove it all. Two lymph nodes were involved, and the tumor was estrogen-receptor positive. They staged her at IIB. All pretty standard stuff when it comes to breast cancer.
In another surgery they placed her port then Chris began chemotherapy. She had 4 rounds of Adriamycin and Cytoxan that gave her severe thrush and uncontrolled nausea. She is allergic to Zofran and no other anti-emetic was offered. Chris’s cool sarcasm broke. She cried for the first time on October 21st when her hair began to fall out. Along with her four rounds of chemotherapy, the oncologist asked her if she wanted to enroll in a study of Taxol, a relatively new drug. She wondered, in her words, “Did I give my daughter my eyes and stubby fingers AND breast cancer?” If she did, she wanted to be sure there were more drugs available when her daughter grew up, so she enrolled.
After the initial four treatments, the Taxol trial began. She was randomly assigned to the Taxol group, not the placebo. While she didn’t have nausea, the bone pain was horrendous. Taking steroids every hour for twelve hours before treatment made her gain 100 pounds in a month. “Yeah, my luck,” Chris says, “I get the cancer that causes weight gain.”
Once the trial was completed, she moved on to radiation, which exhausted her. During all this time, her marriage was falling apart. Driving to and from her radiation treatments was so tiring that she’d have to stop and rest. Once treatment ended and she was declared cancer-free, she asked her husband to leave. But in the process of moving forward with her life, she lost her insurance and could no longer to afford Tamoxifen, a maintenance medication for Chris’s estrogen-sensitive cancer.
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| Image source |
The ultrasound technician couldn’t find the lump and Chris told her she could only find it sitting up. Chris sat up, and the tech found what Chris describes as “an octopus in my top right breast.” A week later she had a wire localization biopsy which Chris describes as being like “a mammogram, but the plates had holes in them so they could insert a wire by the mass.” She was sedated but awake and saw them put her tumor in a jar.
After the surgery, when Chris was in recovery with her mom and her husband, the doctor walked in told them it was cancer. Her mom cried, her husband fell back into a wall and Chris stayed cool and sarcastic. “Well shit,” she said, “I just paid a fortune to get my hair cut. What now?” Next came a lumpectomy and axillary dissection to check the lymph nodes under her arm. This was Chris’ first surgery, successful by all measures. It was a one centimeter by one centimeter tumor and surgeon was able to remove it all. Two lymph nodes were involved, and the tumor was estrogen-receptor positive. They staged her at IIB. All pretty standard stuff when it comes to breast cancer.
In another surgery they placed her port then Chris began chemotherapy. She had 4 rounds of Adriamycin and Cytoxan that gave her severe thrush and uncontrolled nausea. She is allergic to Zofran and no other anti-emetic was offered. Chris’s cool sarcasm broke. She cried for the first time on October 21st when her hair began to fall out. Along with her four rounds of chemotherapy, the oncologist asked her if she wanted to enroll in a study of Taxol, a relatively new drug. She wondered, in her words, “Did I give my daughter my eyes and stubby fingers AND breast cancer?” If she did, she wanted to be sure there were more drugs available when her daughter grew up, so she enrolled.
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| Image source |
Once the trial was completed, she moved on to radiation, which exhausted her. During all this time, her marriage was falling apart. Driving to and from her radiation treatments was so tiring that she’d have to stop and rest. Once treatment ended and she was declared cancer-free, she asked her husband to leave. But in the process of moving forward with her life, she lost her insurance and could no longer to afford Tamoxifen, a maintenance medication for Chris’s estrogen-sensitive cancer.
