BREAST SELF-EXAMS PAGE 7A
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Oct. 23, 2014
HEALTH
Volume 83, Issue 10
www.FlorAla.net
Student newspaper of the University of North Alabama
Student shares family breast cancer battle ASHLEY SOUTHARD
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Not every breast cancer story is the same. My mother has endured a lot in her life, but cancer affected her more deeply than anything. Many of the stereotypes surrounding the disease are not typical for every case. Mastectomies are not always needed. Not every patient loses his or her hair. Not every scar is noticeable. My mother, Missy, found this out the hard way. When my mother went in
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for a routine mammogram May 1, 2012, the doctors told her they found something, so she would need to stay for an ultrasound. Dr. Joe Cannon told my mother he was sure it was cancer but to wait until results came back. Doctors told her if it was cancer, it might have been caused by the hormone medication prescribed to her after she underwent a full hysterectomy five years earlier. But, they also said the odds for her to have developed cancer were very small. Like Han Solo, she told them not to tell her the odds. I remember the day my mother received the phone call confirming she had breast cancer. It was May 11, 2012. I remember her first questions because they were my own. Was she going to die? Was she going to be OK? Cancer does not only affect the person who has it, but the family as well. My senior year of high school did not start the way I envisioned it. I had plans to go visit colleges that summer and for my family to spend time together doing something fun. Instead, the days I was not
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volunteering at the library, I spent with my mother at her cancer treatments. For more than a month, five days a week, I watched my mother suffer through radiation treatments at Clearview Cancer Institute in Huntsville. This was all because of a ductal 0.7-centimeter carcinoma tumor. I remember my first thoughts as I sat in the waiting room. The people reminded me of the pictures I had seen of concentration camps — some were bald, some were frail-looking. But, they all wore the same hospital gown. I remember her telling me she was embarrassed to say she had cancer. Those words hit me hard. Here was a woman who was notorious for speaking her mind on just about anything. She would go toe-to-toe with teachers, parents and even the Limestone County superintendent. My mother had always been outspoken. The fact she was afraid to talk about cancer hurt me more than her having it. For her, talking about it is like reliving a bad memory. She feels if she talks about it, she has to admit it happened and that it could happen again. It is
a fear she lives with every day. Breast cancer is a vicious cancer for women. I am not saying other cancers are not as heinous, or that breast cancer does not affect men. Breast cancer takes away femininity — what it means to be a woman. When my mother’s friends would ask her about a scar or her surgery, she would pull her shirt up and show them. She would simply remark, “I have no dignity left.” She even hated going out in public. ;MM *)<<4- XIOM )
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