our dancing shoes and take someone dancing!
This story is dedicated to our forever angel, Ryleigh.
Gloria Benninghoff
As written by Tammy Miller
Gloria lives in State College, PA. She is a young 79 and has four wonderful children, a girl Jancie and 3 boys Richard, Kerry,Todd. She has been blessed with many loving friends and her precious Golden Retrievers.
MY CANCER STORY
(Sarah) Joanne Berkley
It started out with a nagging pain in my lower left side. When it went on for several weeks, I began to think about a doctor visit. I had had a hysterectomy back in 1980 but because of my age they had not removed my left ovary. With all the talk about ovarian cancer, I decided I had better have it checked out. On September 17, 2009 I had a female exam and pap smear. The doctor ordered a sonogram of my ovary which was done on Sept. 23, 2009. She also ordered blood work and, at the time, she asked if I wanted to have a mammogram since I hadn’t had one for 2 years. I told her,”Okay, we might as well do it all” and she scheduled it .
The technician who did the mammogram on Oct. 3, 2009 was very thorough….I thought a little too thorough as I was not a big fan of mammograms, but I left happy to have it over with. Later that week I received a call that my x-ray was abnormal and they wanted to re-do it. I was assured by many of my friends that this had happened to them also and everything was fine. So I went back on Oct. 14, 2009 ready to hear that all was well. Not so….the person who read the x-rays was present and when they were all finished, I was told I needed to see a cancer surgeon. Strangely enough, I was calm and had no fear whatsoever. I thought, “How strange. I should be falling apart.”
On Oct. 28, 2009 I had a consultation visit with Dr. Garguilo. He showed me on the x-rays, the spot they suspected was cancer and said a biopsy would need to be done to be sure. I had the biopsy at Johnstown Memorial Hospital on Nov. 18, 2009. The test results came back—cancer! Still...no fear. I had the peaceful feeling that everything was going to be okay.
On Dec. 9, 2009 I met with Dr. G. to discuss my options. Because of the small size of the lump, he said that a lumpectomy would be the best way to surgically remove it, and we scheduled my surgery for January 4, 2010. He also told me that I would be a candidate for a new way of doing radiation treatments but it was only done at the Indiana hospital. He would put a balloon in my breast after he removed the lump to hold a space for the catheter needed for the radiation treatments which would be twice a day for 5 days and I would be done. Wonderful! I checked with my insurance and everything was good to go.
In the meantime I had to have several scans to be sure there were no other cancers in my body plus blood work and consultation with the anesthesiologist.
On Monday, January 4, 2010, Dr. G. removed the lump from my breast along with several lymph nodes under my right arm. Testing on the nodes showed no spread of cancer cells there so I would only need to have radiation treatments—not chemo, so my stay at Indiana, PA was on.
I returned home the afternoon of January 4th with only a band-aid on my wound. My daughter (who drove me to the hospital) and I stopped at Wal-mart for a quick shopping trip on the way home.
On Wednesday January 6th, 2010, I drove myself to Lee Campus of Conemaugh Memorial Hospital for Dr. G. to remove the balloon and insert the catheter. I then drove myself to Indiana Regional where I was supposed to begin radiation treatments. Upon arrival, I found there was a slight problem….the machine needed was being serviced and wouldn’t be ready until the following week.
I was very disappointed because the roads were icy and snow covered (being wintertime) but I decided to journey back home. Early Monday morning, January 11, 2010, I began receiving radiation treatments as planned. Dr. Tunio and the staff at the Cancer Center were wonderful. I returned home on Friday.
Since that time I have continued to have follow-up visits with Dr. Tunio and Dr. G. I’ve had mammograms (still not one of my favorite tests but one I highly recommend!) which have all been normal.
I have been cancer free now for over a year. Although I don’t know why I had to have cancer, my faith is in God who made me, who has ordered all my days, and in his Son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross so that I might live with Him eternally. He gave me peace, and led me to the right people to help me. This life is not all there is, so whether I am cured or die of cancer and go home to heaven, I WIN!
Joanne lives in Meyersdale, PA where she is part-time Secretary of the Grace Brethren Church, Treasurer of the Meyersdale Area Union Cemetery, and holds down a fulltime job at First National Bank. She is a widow with 5 grown children, eleven grandchildren, and one great, grandson. You may reach her at [email protected]
A Sprinkle of FUN from the Author…
“I have everything I had twenty years ago, only it’s all a little bit lower.”
- Gypsy Rose Lee
Sallie’s Story
Sallie Boggs
My experience with breast cancer taught me the value of friends, the importance of taking action to get immediate and excellent care, to keep a sense of humor during treatment and then forget it.
I found my own little lump about the size of a bean. It was so small that my regular doctor could not feel it and she reluctantly ordered a mammogram. Neither did the mammogram show anything. Luckily, the mammogram technician could feel what I felt and ordered a sonogram. There it was, as clear as could be!
The results of the biopsy that followed were reported to my doctor and it was two weeks before she called me about it. By then I was already moving toward treatment. This was thanks to the technician who had agreed to call me as soon as the biopsy results came in. She actually confused me a bit by reporting that the biopsy was positive. When I said, “good” she said, “No, bad. Positive means that it is invasive cancer and you should see about treating it immediately.”
Now you might think I could take this very rationally because I was a cancer researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, however, all I could think of was those invasive cancer cells doubling in my breast and I wanted them gone, now. I called a friend and collaborator who is an active breast cancer treatment doctor and he said I needed three specialists, a surgeon, a chemo therapist and a radiotherapist and he offered to make the appointments. I was sooo relieved. After appointments with all of them, the consensus was that for my stage-one lump a lumpectomy with radiotherapy and the new drug, Arimidex, total cure was very likely.
The doctors were all very careful to do all the important tests and explain things to me. I asked many questions and on advice of a book by my friend Tammy, I recorded all our conversations and listened to them when, inevitably, I forgot some detail. I had called Tammy immediately after I got my diagnosis to get her book and she sent both the book and a bag of red clown noses.
These noses got me through the surgery. I, my friend, and the hospital escort who pushed me from station to station in a wheel chair, all wore clown noses. There were two kinds of people we passed or interacted with. One group looked away as if they were embarrassed for us. The other group smiled or laughed out loud and waved or gave a thumbs-up. This little bit of levity lowered my anxiety and made it easier for my companions as well.
After the surgery,
