When Lightning Strikes Twice

My personal story of two cancer diagnoses, survival, and lessons that only illness can teach.

For many people, when they hear the words “you have cancer,” their world stops. Everything becomes a blur of fear, appointments, and decisions you never imagined you’d have to make. Me? Well, I am an eternal optimist with a “Tank Mentality.” I never met an obstacle I thought I couldn’t overcome. So, I did not react like most people. I’d beaten endometrial cancer almost exactly a year before and, in all honesty, it was a breeze.

The First Diagnosis…not too bad

The endometrial cancer was diagnosed during the early days of Covid, and the hospitals were not doing “elective surgeries.” Yes, you heard that correctly…. endometrial cancer was considered an elective surgery in the early days of the pandemic. That did not make me very happy at all. However, I had a wonderful OB-GYN surgery-oncologist who was very supportive. She explained that since this cancer was estrogen driven, they would use an IUD to block the estrogen until I could get the complete hysterectomy I needed.

Fortunately, the hospital eased up the restrictions, and I was able to have surgery in about five weeks. My oncologist performed the surgery using the minimally invasive da Vinci system. It offers better visibility and has robotic arms that the surgeon controls from a console to perform a complete hysterectomy and remove lymph nodes for testing.

I stayed overnight in the hospital and went home to rest for three days. I felt so good and had no pain that I actually went back to work in my veterinary hospital on day 4 post-op (I’m sure my doctor never knew). The tissue and lymph nodes were checked microscopically, and fortunately the results were great. All the lymph nodes were clear and free from cancer and the odds of it coming back were only about 5%. I got the results, went back to work, and never really worried about it again.

Oh No…Again…but much worse

What I didn’t know was that cancer would come back within the year. This time it was breast cancer and had a 38% chance of coming back within 9 years unless I had the trifecta of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Then the odds would drop to an 18% chance of recurrence. Not what I was hoping for and not the super easy, solitary surgery that fixed my endometrial cancer the year prior. However, I went on my merry eternal-optimist way not realizing what all was about to happen.

Honestly, I had always been heavy and I told myself: “OK, I’ll have surgery, get what turned out to be five doses of radiation in total and then have six months of chemo. I’ll have vomiting and diarrhea, and lose a bunch of weight. No big deal. I’ll be sick for a while but everything will be fine. Little did I know that chemo would be nothing like I thought, and I would have side effects that torment me to this day 3 ½ years later.

Surgery and Radiation…hanging in there

First, I would have a lumpectomy to remove the small mass and lymph nodes. These were then checked for cancerous cells; and from there, the staging and grading would determine if chemo and radiation were necessary. Since they were necessary, radiation was performed before surgery.

Radiation was a little scary for me because I had known people who had uncomfortable side effects. However, I had stereotactic body radiation therapy or SBRT. This delivers a very precise, high-dose level of radiation to a small, focused area. Due to the high dosage, it generally involves only 1-5 sessions — as opposed to traditional radiation which takes weeks or even months to complete.

I had no side effects such as burns, and the only uncomfortable portion of the treatment was the techs molding a plastic shell for me to be in during the administration of radiation. The hour of lying on my back with one arm twisted above my head was really uncomfortable. However, after the mold was created, it helped me stay in place for the radiation treatments with no pain or discomfort.

Chemotherapy….the worst experience of all

Once I was finished with surgery and radiation, the surgeon put in a port near my collarbone on the left side. It was under the skin and attached to tubing going to a larger blood vessel. This was where the oncology staff would draw blood and administer the chemotherapy drugs every two weeks. I lived with the port in place for almost two years. It was left in until the oncologist felt like no more chemo would be needed.

The initial plan was I would be treated with 12 doses of Taxol at two-week intervals and then four doses of doxorubicin (The Red Devil as it is called) at two-week intervals. Due to side effects, I chose to stop the taxol after nine doses and the doxorubicin after three doses.

I remember sitting in the exam room — exhausted, in pain, and trying to advocate for myself. The neuropathy from chemo was getting worse with burning, tingling, and altering my ability to walk and sleep. It was scary…to me as well as to my family.

That was the moment I knew for certain that not all cancer journeys are created equal. Some are much worse than others, which is a reason to be hopeful if you end up with one of the less serious varieties. But it’s also a reason to do everything you can to make life better while you go through what will probably be the toughest fight of your life.

That starts with choosing the right doctor and team, which we will discuss next week. I’ll even tell you what my doctor said to me when I was vulnerable with her about how painful the chemotherapy was. Her response was one of the most disrespectful things I’ve ever heard.