class - Regis College

14
REGIS TODAY
My cancer experience seems
a lifetime ago and when I tell
someone new, I’m always startled
by their wide-eyed reaction. I was
a 37-year-old mother of three, married
to my high school sweetheart
and enjoying a part-time writing
career and new baby. But I was
also very tired and growing thinner
every day. I chalked both up
to a busy life and soldiered on.
And then I felt something.
It was deep within my armpit
(“axilla” as I’d later call it in
hospital-speak) and I knew it
shouldn’t be there. Against my
better judgment, I grasped onto
two misdiagnoses, submitting to
physical therapy for a supposed
pulled muscle and blood tests
for a supposed thyroid disorder.
I feared all along. I had cancer.
According to my oncologist,
this type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
had an 85 percent chance
of being cured with chemotherapy.
Two months into treatment, even
more thin, tired and now bald,
I learned I was part of the unlucky
15 percent.
Plan B was an autologous stem
cell transplant: a procedure that
uses a patient’s own healthy stem
cells to replace diseased cells. Stem
cells are collected intravenously,
frozen and stored, and high-dose
chemotherapy, intended to destroy
bone marrow and any cancer cells,
follows. Days later, the stored
cells are returned via transfusion,
jump-starting the bone marrow to
begin producing healthy cells.
The term “transplant,” evoking
operating rooms and masked
surgeons, is a misnomer for the
stem cell process. Mine involved a
friendly nurse named Muriel and
several bags of blood. There were
many side effects as my immune
system recovered in an isolated
Boston hospital room, but the
worst was being separated from
my three little girls for 20 days.
Thirty years later, many of Mary’s Regis classmates rallied to support her during her
“Year of Cancer.” Mary’s roommate Michelle is in the blue vest, Mary is next to her;
the writer, Patti, is behind them in the green.
And that’s what came to my
mind when my old pal Mary began
her cancer journey. Back at Regis,
Mary was a wild child, bombing
around campus in an old VW bug
and cracking up us Boston-area
girls with tales of cow tipping in
rural Connecticut. But Mary was a
single mom now with a busy career
and two teenagers and I knew they
She told them the facts straight
out. “I had a test and there’s
a lump in one breast,” Mary
explained to Patrick, then 17,
and Catherine, 15. “Patrick immediately
asked if it was cancer.”
Mary reassured them the cancer
had been caught early and her
prognosis was good.
“Every year I have a mammogram
and an ultrasound. I almost
skipped 2011’s ultrasound but
thank God I didn’t,” she said. “The
mammogram showed no evidence
of cancer, but the ultrasound
caught it.” A surgical biopsy
revealed good news. The cancer
was stage I and had not spread to
lymph nodes. The tumor was
a treatable ER-positive and Mary
did not have the BRCA2 gene.
“In the beginning, I thought
okay, I’ll have a lumpectomy and
follow up with radiation,” she said.
Further testing, however, showed
the tumor was HER2-positive, a
more aggressive type of breast cancer.
She would receive six rounds
of chemotherapy over 18 weeks,
radiation, and a year of Herceptin,
a drug that targets HER2-positive
cells and reduces recurrence. “It
was a lot to take in,” Mary said.
As Mary steeled herself for
the physical battle, another raged
internally. It was one I remembered
well. “Why me?” she wondered.
“I exercise. I don’t smoke.
I eat healthy. I do everything right
and I still get cancer.” I recalled
my quick recovery and assured