FIRST-HAND ADVICE AND INSIGHT TO HELP CAREGIVERS COPE
A DISCUSSION WITH
RONDA WALKER A “believe it, be it� attitude and determination to keep moving forward for her kids pushed Montgomery County Commissioner Ronda Walker through a dire diagnoses and to the other side: breast cancer survivorship.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR CANCER DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT. It was one week before Christmas 2014 when I was diagnosed with locally invasive breast cancer. I had two tumors in my right breast, two different types of cancer. One tumor was the size of a lime, the second tumor was the size of a penny. My PET scan revealed the presence of cancer in several lymph nodes around my right breast. Basically, I was a mess! My wonderful oncologist, Dr. Stephen Davidson at the Montgomery Cancer Center, determined an aggressive course of treatment was necessary. First, we had to do chemo to shrink the tumors. I was given eight rounds, one round every other week. Chemotherapy has a compounding impact on the body. The first couple of rounds, while bad, were tolerable. As the treatment continued, my fatigue was extreme, I experienced sores in my mouth, I had constant nausea, and of course, I was bald! The good news is, my body responded perfectly to the chemo and when finished, there was no sign of cancer. I followed up chemo with a mastectomy, then 28 rounds of radiation. After radiation ended and I healed, I had a 14-hour reconstructive surgery that involved a second mastectomy and double reconstruction. My breast cancer treatment lasted for an entire year.
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