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Personal Stories |
      Personal Stories Low Profile: Women Also Face Risk
Low Profile: Women Also Face Risk by Kathleen Schuler Four years ago, at age 46, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Because I led such a healthy lifestyle, I was very surprised. I fit the typical low-risk profile: no family history of breast cancer, non-smoker, average age at first menses, first child born at age 22, breast-fed three children for longer than average. I exercised regularly and ate a healthy, mostly vegetarian diet. I thought if I did everything right to protect my health, I would be protected from cancer. I was wrong. The truth is, we are all at risk. One in eight women will get breast cancer in her lifetime. Three in ten women get some kind of cancer: maybe cervical, colon, or bladder cancer. Women who don't get cancer may be at risk for endometriosis, fertility problems, diabetes, fibromyalgia or multiple chemical sensitivities. What is the common thread in increases in cancer and these other diseases? I believe it is ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS. We're not immune from the effects of our increasingly toxic world. Why did I get cancer? Was it pesticide exposures as a child, like when they sprayed DDT to kill mosquitoes? Was it the insecticide I used to kill fleas, or the houseplant insecticides, or the lawn chemicals, or the petrochemical-based cleaning products, or.... It is increasingly apparent to many cancer survivors, and to a growing number of scientists and public health practitioners, that we are poisoning ourselves and the world around us. I fought the cancer battle. Now I am ready to fight the activist's battle. As a recent recipient of a Bush Leadership Fellowship, I will have the opportunity to interview scientists and policy-makers and write about public policy issues on environmental links to cancer. This particular fight is for the right of all human beings to live in a world free of involuntary toxic exposures, a world where human beings honor the earth and all her inhabitants.
by Jeanne Harding For most of my life, I've cared for others, as a medical technician in a care center for the last fifteen years, and as a wife and mother of two. So when breast cancer happened to me eight years ago, I treated it as a nasty interruption to my busy life. I kept working right after surgery, not asking for much help from anyone. Actually, being a giver is easier for me. I'm uncomfortable getting help from others. Fortunately, I received a baseline mammogram at 39 from a new doctor I saw for a routine checkup. There wasn't any special reason for it; no breast cancer with my mom. But another mammogram at age 41 showed a suspicious mass compared to my baseline. It was cancer, and I had a lumpectomy in my left breast and radiation. (Ask me what I think about the National Cancer Institute's recent position on mammograms not being effective until after age 50!) Then last summer, at age 49, my annual mammogram found problems in both breasts. I had a bilateral mastectomy, and this time I acted very differently. I asked for help and sought nurturing everywhere I could. In sharing my story, I want to talk about the positive steps that helped me through the second time around. I took a six-month sabbatical from work to regroup. Our family worries about money, but somehow I know things will work out. I derive tangible support from several prayer chains at church that are plugged in for me. There's a good book by Larry Dossey, M.D., Healing Words, on the power of prayer that backs this up, and there have been blind studies at the University of San Francisco in which patients who are prayed for heal faster. I truly believe in this. I've taken advantage of all the support services I can find. I use the library and the Caring Hands Touch program at WCRC, which helps to calm me down and at the same time gives me more energy. I take more time with family and friends. I've gone on a "winter experience," skiing and dogsledding with other women who've experienced cancer. When I get tired, I rest instead of trying to conquer the world. I go to the movies and have lunch with friends. I tried something to keep my hair during chemo and it worked! With the help of the "Nioxin" hair treatment, a shampoo, conditioner and leave-on treatment, I kept most of my hair through 24 weeks of chemotherapy. I started this two weeks before chemo and kept it up for six weeks afterward. It was expensive, but it seemed to work well for me. Today, I'm doing well. I'm undergoing reconstructive surgery and getting my energy back. Pain and fear were a part of my experience the second time around, but I chose to become better rather than bitter. By asking for and receiving help I've been able to reclaim my life, and be in a place I want to be. There is help; we need to listen to our bodies and hearts to know how to find it.
By Dianne Jewell, WCRC Board Member and Environmental Action Committee Member In 1994 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which included three kinds of cancer cells: invasive ductal; non-invasive tubular and non-invasive lobular. The surgeon advised a modified radical mastectomy. Ten days later I followed his advice. I was too overwhelmed and frightened to question doctors or read up on the subject before the surgery, but I've made up for this in the past three years! Fortunately, my reading reinforced the mastectomy recommendation. Being informed has helped me to be more in charge of my body during the medical process, and it is reassuring to work as a team with the medical community. Following the surgery, I was put on Tamoxifen, but the drug gave me unpleasant side effects. The worst was a six-week, full body rash in early 1997. Because I would no longer be taking this drug and because lobular cancer tends to repeat in the second breast, I had a prophylactic second mastectomy in June 1997, with no reconstruction on either side. In reflecting on why I got breast cancer, the only thing I could come up with was that my sister had breast cancer, my father had prostate and bone cancer, my mother had malignant melanoma, and my brother had prostate and basal cell carcinoma. Puzzling, however, was the fact that my father and mother had no strong family cancer history in their ancestors! The link that came to mind was that the five of us with cancer were living and working on a farm during the advent of pesticides, particularly DDT. We worked in the fields and had constant exposure to strong chemicals from spring to fall. In the 1940s and 1950s, we used the new miracle weed and insect killers at optimum strength, and of course, we knew nothing of wearing masks or other protection. We also didn't know that pesticides enter through our food, drink, air and skin, invisible and many times odorless, and REMAIN IN OUR BODIES FOR A LONG TIME. Interestingly, my two older sisters are cancer-free. They left home for college before the era of insecticide use. Cancer took away my capability to ever really trust my body again, but it has also given me so much. I feel I now have a more balanced perspective, more empathy for others, more enjoyment of small pleasures and a more adventuresome life. It is easier to live in the moment and let go of things over which I have no control. I have certainly gained enormous respect for other people's courage and strength. Audrey Sutherland said in Paddling Your Own Canoe, "The process of daily living is often intense and whimsical. The joy of it, and the compassion, we can share, but in pain we are ultimately alone. The only real antidote is inside. The only real security is not insurance or money or a job, not a house and furniture paid for, and never is it another person. It is the skill and humor and courage within, the ability to build your own fires and find your own peace." I believe in the connection between our environment and cancer. Finding WCRC and the intelligent women at the center has given me purpose in the war on cancer and the politics. by Carol Johnson Change is inevitable when you have cancer. As a cancer survivor/thriver, and former Minneapolis City Council member, and as a mother, grandmother and gardener, I now work to protect our world so that value is left for our grandchildren and their children. In 1989 on the city council, I attended a conference in Irvine, California, that changed my life forever. A researcher, Dr. Sherwood Rowland, talked of climate change and predicted the average world temperature would increase 3 to 5 degrees in the next 75 years. A rise of that magnitude occurred after the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago. I thought, "What future are we leaving for our grandchildren?" That's when I resolved to become active for the sake of all our children and the environment. I faced another life defining experience in 1995 with breast cancer. Now I'm a survivor, grateful to be alive and wanting to give something back. I became active with WCRC as the coordinator of the "Turning the Tides" 1996 conference, examining environmental links to cancer. Before cancer, I understood that breast cancer was inherited. Now I've learned that only 5% to 10% of breast cancer is connected with inherited genes. Other factors like smoking, one or two alcoholic beverages a day, obesity, physical inactivity, early menopause, late childbearing bring about another 10% or 20% of the risk factors. What causes the other 70% to 80%? Some US authorities say only 5% of cancers have environmental causes. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization, says it's 80%. Whom do you believe? My mother had no breast cancer. I have no sisters. Environmental factors began to add up. Raised on a farm, I was exposed to DDT at an early age. I had poor teeth and lots of x-rays when technology was poor. We x-rayed our feet for shoe fit. I took the early birth control pills. I refinished an older home using paint solvents. I ate high-fat foods and started mammograms at age 50. Which if any factor, contributed to my breast cancer? Each one of us should have the experience I did -- coordinating an environmental conference. I learned so much and became a cancer activist. I also became an activist in my own home, using non-toxic cleaning products and eating organically grown foods as much as possible. Many of us asked a question at that conference: "Why doesn't the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society place more emphasis on prevention of cancer?" Only 5% to 20% of their monies are spent on prevention. Cancer and heart disease share many of the same high risk factors, yet heart disease deaths have fallen by 40% while cancer deaths decreased only slightly. The prevention question needs an answer. Recently I appeared on WCCO-TV with a show on earth-friendly household cleaners. The response was tremendous. I found that people are thirsting for such information. They want cleaner and greener products. I learned too that a handful of people can make a lot of change. As Margaret Meade said, "Never doubt that a small group of committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." |
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