It was Thursday afternoon of Fall Break, and I found myself accompanying my friend for her chemotherapy treatment. The mood of this bright, beautiful autumn day in St. Louis changed as my friend Larissa and I opened the doors to the clinic.
Larissa, a young mother and dear friend, was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer this summer.
There are four stages of cancer, I being the least severe and IV being the hardest to cure. Stage II cancer means that her cancer spread beyond the breast into the surrounding lymph nodes. That Thursday was her fifth of eight intensive chemotherapy treatments.
As we stood in the hallway waiting for the elevator, she began to shiver and feel sick because she knew all too well what was about to happen. When we entered the first waiting room, she immediately was sent to get a blood test. As I sat in the quiet waiting room, there were two conversations going on around me, one between a nurse and patient and one between the husband and sister of a patient. I couldn't help but listen as the devastated husband relayed the details of his wife's latest recurrence of cancer to her sister -- the prognosis was not good.
Just then Larissa returned and we went to the second waiting room to wait to talk to the doctor. This room was full of people sitting in pairs, about half of whom were bald, some wearing a hat or wig. Most were just talking quietly amongst themselves.
Two middle-aged women were talking to each other in the corner. When one of them began to cry softly, the other tried to comfort her. The most chilling observation of the afternoon was the very scared-looking older couple sitting across from us who did not say a word the entire time we were there. They just sat there, both staring straight ahead, holding desperately on to each other's arms for dear life. Perhaps they were waiting for biopsy results, results that might change their lives.
The mood of the room was very heavy. No one was worrying about traffic or exam grades.
After talking to the doctor and waiting in yet another waiting room, we were led back to the treatment area. On the way we passed rooms full of hospital beds and reclining chairs, each with their own set of IVs -- IVs that hold the drugs that cause so much pain but carry so much hope for the people attached to them.
Some of the patients chose to watch little TVs while being treated. One woman was doing needlepoint with an IV attached to her hand. Larissa and I chose to talk about her little daughters and her family back home. Others chose to lay back and close their eyes while loved ones sat around and watched and prayed.
I wish that no one had to go through cancer, but the truth is that one in eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. This chance increases with age or a significant family history of the disease. The key to beating breast cancer is early detection.
The American Cancer Society recommends that women should get annual mammograms starting at age 40 or younger if they have a family history of the disease, especially if a mother or sister had the disease at a young age. All women aged 20 and older should conduct a self-exam every month. Some women do not conduct self-exams because they do not know what to look for. But the point of a self-exam is to get to know what your breasts feel like so you can tell when there is a change.
The number of breast cancer cases is rising, but so is the technology available to help fight it. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Perhaps breast cancer will never touch your life, but chances are that you or someone close to you, maybe your mother, sister, friend or wife will get the disease. Most college-aged women have not been touched directly by breast cancer, but it is never too early to be educated.
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