Minnie: surviving breast cancer My name is Minnie. I live in Mississippi. I'm 69 years old, married and have four children by a previous marriage, one girl and three boys. I have seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I'm a cancer survivor. I had a modified radical mastectomy on the left side November 15, 1999. I was blessed in that I didn't have to take radiation or chemo, I was just given Novadex and estrogen blocker. The cancer was feeding on estrogen, and I still had my ovaries. I was also taking Premarin and Provera hormone pills. I was on the hormones for fifteen years. I was on Novadex for five years. You see in February 98 I got a regular mammogram and in September of the same year, they called me in for a repeat on my left. They said it was a cyst, but it hadn't cleared up. So on October 4, 1999, I went for an annual mammogram and had to repeat it again on the left side. On October 27, 1999, this time they had found a lump and I was sent to a surgeon on the second of November. He gave me a choice of a needle biopsy or a lumpectomy. I chose the lumpectomy, and it proved to be cancerous. Then I had a choice of cutting a little more around the lumpectomy or removing the breast. I chose removing the breast. My doctor told me I did the right thing, because my breast was full of cancer cells. I had the lumpectomy November 11, 1999, and the mastectomy the 15th of November, 1999. I was in the hospital for two more days, the 16th and 17th , and my daughter and her husband was with me, and when I came home, she stayed with me two more days. And I was never left alone. When my husband had to leave, a real good friend, a neighbor, would come and sit with me. She did this for a week.
 Finding
the strength
When I first found out I was scared. I had just got a new great-granddaughter on the 28th of October. The next day after I had the second mammogram. I was afraid I wouldn't get to see her grow up. She's almost eleven months old, now, and I'm doing fine, praise the Lord. My husband and daughter and grandchild from Mobile, Alabama, was with me afterwards when I came out of surgery from the lumpectomy. So the time I went for the mastectomy, I was prepared, emotionally. I had my husband, two sisters, one brother, a brother-in-law, all four children, my two oldest grandchildren, and my granddaughter's pastor, standing by when I went into surgery. Some of them had come all the way from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and one from Louisiana and one from Besmer, Alabama. There's nothing like having the Lord and family standing by when you go through that, and they have stuck by me. I was prescribed an anxiety pill when I went home, but only took it one day, and didn't need it any more. I have been encouraged by so many people. I was at church, and was telling a pastor's wife about it and asking for prayer that I wouldn't have a recurrence, and she told me that twenty years ago, she had the same thing, and was still doing fine. I went to the place where I had been taking my VCR for repairs and was out of the car, and when my husband told her, she came out and was talking and saying she had a double mastectomy five years ago. So, my strength comes from the Lord, family, friends, and the knowledge that if I ever need them, the American Cancer Society will always be there. I have needed them once to pay for medication, and they come through.
Get
your mammograms
I would like to say that age is no factor in cancer. It attacks with no mercy, so check yourself for lumps in your breast, and have a mammogram done even though you are young. I have met a thirty-year-old mother of one that just had a mastectomy on the same side this past March, and she's having to take chemo. It's real important to catch it early, that's what I did and the nodes they removed didn't show any more cancer. I have had a bone scan and chest x-ray and will have another chest x-ray and then mammogram on November 16, 2000. I advise everyone to keep their follow up appointments. Sometimes, before I went for my mammogram, on October 4th, 1999, I had discovered a lump, I can't remember how long before. I also had some sharp pains at the location for a couple of days while sitting in a chair in my living room. I realized I had passed the time for the annual mammogram, so I made an arrangement as soon as possible, and I'm glad I did. Remember, just because you have lost a breast to cancer, it don't mean you are a different person. My daughter came from Mobile to visit the other day, and she said, for awhile, she had forgotten that I had had surgery. I had my prosthesis on, and she couldn't tell the difference. For a minute there, she forgot that I had had surgery, and the neighbors that sit with me when it happened, the other day, that I was still the same person, just shaped different. Well, that's my story, hope it will help someone. |
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