How Breast Cancer Struck Close to Home — Twice

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breast cancer awareness

 

pink ribbonAccording to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer sometime in her life; it is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women. Throughout October, to mark breast cancer awareness month, our contributors will be sharing their perspectives on this disease. Today, Barbara remembers two important women in her life who fought breast cancer but were taken too soon.

My Grandmother

My Grandma Bernadette died when I was 3. It wasn’t the breast cancer that killed her on Valentine’s Day 1988; it was the medication that was used to treat it. Her body was so weakened, she could not fight off infection.

Barbara baking cookies in 1987 with her Grandmother
Baking cookies with my grandmother in 1987. She died later the next year.

Even though I was just a toddler, coming and going from the hospital made a strong impact on my life. My grandmother listened to her doctor, an old-school man who kept telling her she was imagining things and that nothing was wrong, until the cancer could not be ignored. At that point, it was already too late.

My “Maritime Mom”

When I was 24, breast cancer reared its ugly head again, and it hit close to home once again too. This time, in Lucie Evens, my chorus director from SUNY Maritime College, whom I had referred to as my “Maritime Mom.” She told me she would fight it, and she did. She went into remission. She visited me a few months later, and we walked in a Relay for Life at my middle school to celebrate.

Lucie, After Surviving her First Bout of Breast Cancer
My dear friend Lucie Evens, in remission

Then, one and a half years after she was originally diagnosed, she called my house phone. She didn’t want to catch me driving. When I came in and my now-husband told me he was on the phone with Lucie, I thought it was odd that she had called my house phone. It’s a good thing she had, because I would not have been able to drive when she told me that the cancer had come back. It had spread to her spine. Lucie choked back tears, once again telling me she would fight it, and that she would dance at my wedding in five months.

Lucie Evens and Barbara at the Relay for Life
Me with Lucie at the Relay for Life

She wouldn’t make it.  She passed on January 19, 2011, after a few weeks in the hospital. I was devastated.

At my wedding that May, the first song played as we sat down for dinner was “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” the Elton John version. We played it in her honor.

One year to the day after Lucie Evens passed, it snowed. She loved the snow. I was pregnant with my first child. I looked up and saw the snow as I practically crawled into the hospital in East Meadow, N.Y., in slipper socks (I had severe swelling and couldn’t put shoes on). Even though my baby was coming three weeks early, I knew everything was going to be okay. Three days later, after a prolonged induction attempt, I gave birth to my daughter, Lucie, whom I named after my dear friend.

What I Learned

These two experiences have made such a huge impact on my life that I am very dedicated to performing my monthly breast exams, and I had a mammogram at the slightest irregularity (turned out to be a deep acne cyst). It is better to be safe than sorry. I still hope for a cure, but I know that without prevention, a cure is not very helpful.

What I am asking you all to take from this are two basic points:

1) Trust your instinct. Getting a test and having it be negative is better than not being tested and missing breast cancer when it is still treatable.

2) Don’t be afraid to ask for a second opinion. Doctors are human, and they are not infallible. The worst-case scenario is that you pay a second co-payment. The best-case scenario is that it saves your life.

Are you remembering someone special this October? Tell us about her, in the comments.

Pink ribbon image: justclaire / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA; slideshow image: bookgrl / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
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Barbara Reggio
Barbara Reggio is a wife, mother, and small business owner. She has been married to Jonathan since May 2011, and they are partners in parenting their two children, Lucie (January 2012) and Asher (April 2014). The Reggio family relocated to West Columbia from Long Island, NY in March 2013 when Jonathan accepted a job transfer. She has the best of both worlds working both outside the home at a Customs House Brokerage and running her home based business, Trendy Babywearing. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Maritime Studies from the State University of New York at Maritime College. When she is not working or writing articles for Columbia SC Moms Blog, Barbara enjoys walking at the Riverbanks Zoo with her family, babywearing, reading, singing along to the radio (loudly) in her car, loom knitting, documenting her children's lives with photography, and writing on her personal blog http://www.trendsettermom.com/. Barbara is currently working on her goal of becoming a lifetime member with Weight Watchers.

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