SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and a time when pink ribbons are everywhere and the focus is on the disease that affects women each year.
The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be 192,370 new breast cancer diagnoses and 40,170 deaths in 2009. As the month draws to a close, the fight continues to help women be proactive about their breast health.
Most women don’t think of getting breast cancer. Marlene Wolfe of Barker didn’t. Now 68, she remembers finding a breast lump in her early 40s.
“I told my doctor, who scheduled a mammogram, and it turned out to be a fibroid lump. He removed it and I began having a mammogram every year,” she said. “Over the years, there were a few more fibroid lumps but nothing alarming, and I admit I grew complacent.”
In November 2008, Wolfe went to the Elizabeth Wendy Logan Breast Cancer Center in Rochester to get her annual mammogram out of the way, already packed for a visit to Minnesota for daughter Heather Wolfe Luoma’s 40th birthday. After the test, the doctor came to the waiting room to say he found something unusual and he wanted to do a biopsy and a sonogram right then. Convinced it was just another benign fibroid lump, Wolfe and sister Claire left for Minnesota two days later. Just as she arrived at her daughter’s home, a cell phone call shattered her world. The doctor said the lump was cancerous and it needed to be removed.
The surgery to remove the lump came on Jan. 13 this year. At the check-up a week later, she was told that the pathologist wanted a larger clear margin around the area and needed to take some more tissue after the first wound healed. On Feb. 17, they cut out more tissue, were satisfied it was clear, and a month of healing began. “Then it was time for radiation.” Five days a week from March 30 to May 6, Wolfe made the trip from Barker to Roswell, husband, sister and close friends sharing the long rides. “On June 25, my doctor told me that I didn’t need him or his crew anymore, unless there was a recurrence,” she said.
If there’s any other advice she would give those who will hear the dreaded diagnosis of cancer, it’s this: “You can’t foresee the bumps in life’s road, but you can’t let them stop you if you trip over one. Pick yourself up, put on a smile and continue your journey as though you were blessed,” Wolfe said.
For more information on breast cancer visit www.cancer.org For information on the local “Mammary Mile” project go to www.mammarymilehookup.wordpress.com.
