Wendy's Story from Florida

My story starts two years before "MY" diagnosis. When my husband was 40 years old, he took a fall from a rope swing, that resulted in a belly buster. He knew he was embarrassed and hurting, but he had no idea what he was about to find out.

After weeks of pain and inconclusive findings about what was going on, we found out during a "Whipple" surgery on October 15, 2001 that he had pancreatic cancer. OK, what were the chances that he took a fall and had one of the worst cancer diagnoses possible? This was happening right after 9/11/01. We were having our own crisis in addition to 9/11....

He wasn't healing and couldn't eat, so he had to have surgery. That's when a 2cm tumor was found in the head of his pancreas. Fifty six lymph nodes were CLEAR of disease. He was officially considered a Stage 1 Pancreatic Cancer patient! After researching this disease thouroughly, I was convinced that even as a Stage 1 pancreatic cancer patient, he would not be alive within three years.

Over the next two years, he completed chemotherapy, radiation and more chemotherapy. We felt blessed to have him every day. I was his primary caregiver as well as full time mom to three young children. At the time of his diagnosis, my daughter was six and my boys were eight and 10 years old. I felt that it was imperative to keep their schedules as uninterrupted as possible. They were too young to understand the magnitude of this disease.

Needless to say, during this time, everybody was getting my full attention. Everybody, that is, except me. I was so busy taking care of my husband and family, that I was not eating properly and not going to the gym and just letting my needs WAIT. In fact, during the time that my yearly mammogram time rolled around, my husband was in the hospital with complications from his surgery, and I missed the appointment.

I finally got my mammogram scheduled five months later. About three weeks before my scheduled mammogram, I found an area of lumpiness in my left breast. While in the shower, I did a self breast exam, and noticed a discharge and tenderness from this same breast.

I called my primary care physician. He ordered a diagnostic mammogram, which was followed immediately by an ultrasound. I found out the day before Thanksgiving, that I had a highly suspicious mass, that would most likely prove to be breast cancer.

How could this be? I just had my 40th Birthday, and now it was my turn to have this horrible disease too? All I could think about was that my kids might very well be orphans one day. They needed at least one of us to raise them.

A biopsy confirmed the suspicions. This was indeed Invasive Intraductal Carcinoma. I was randomized into a clinical study to determine if an MRI could pick up areas in the contralateral breast and guess what? Yes, there was DCIS in the other breast. This meant that I was definitely having a double mastectomy. Six days before Christmas in 2003, I had a double mastectomy. During the sentinel node biopsy, it was determined that the first two sentinal nodes contained cancer. The surgeon went on to do a full axillary node clearance. Thirty two lymph nodes were removed from my left side. The right side had no involvement in the sentinal nodes, resulting in five nodes being removed.

Christmas had a cloud over it once again that year. How could this be happening to two relatively young, healthy people? We had people tell us that if "We" can get cancer, anyone can. I'm convinced that it was our relatively good health that helped get us through the physically exhaustive times.

I went on to have six treatments of TAC (Taxotere, Adriomycin and Cytoxan), followed by Radiation for six weeks and then an oopherectomy. This was a really bad dream!!!

After recovering from the treatments, I was looking for a motivational way to get back in shape. The first day that I began walking for exercise again, a newsletter from PANCAN (Pancreatic Cancer Action Network) came in the mail. The organization was starting a training program for a Marathon and Half Marathon Team to raise money for PANCAN.

That was it! I was going to train for this event. After speaking with "OUR oncologist" (my husband and I share the same oncologist), he agreed to the half marathon. Six weeks after completing my treatments, I began my official training. On February 13, 2005 I completed a Half Marathon in Austin, Texas and raised close to $7000 for PANCAN.

Many of my family members were there rooting me on, and it was the most incredible feeling ever! My children were so proud of me! Well, there's more! I still had not had reconstruction. I did a lot of homework and decided that I wanted to use my own tissue to do the reconstruction. I found a group of physicians in New Orleans who specialize in Microsurgical reconstruction using gluteal tissue. I underwent the first stage of the reconstruction in July 2005. Everything was going smoothly and I was scheduled for the second stage of reconstruction on October 5th, 2007.

Nothing can be too easy for this family, so something HAD to happen. Katrina struck New Orleans in late August 2005. My doctor’s office was scattered all over the country. During the month of September, they regrouped and went north of Lake Ponchatrain to a hospital where they could continue their work. I was still scheduled for Oct. 5th. I would be the first Stage 2 patient for my physician, since before Katrina had hit New Orleans. There were doctors and nurses still living without electricity and still working to take care of us. I would go on to have one more surgery to touch things up, and right before Christmas of 2006, I was finally done!

I can truly say that this has been a journey like no other. My husband will officially be a "six" year Pancreatic Cancer survivor on October 15, 2007, with no evidence of disease and I will be a four year survivor in December 2007.
We understand how incredibly fortunate and blessed we are. Our family has grown in so many ways. Our children are now 17, 14 and 12. They are the most compassionate, loving, thoughtful children in the world. They have endured hard times that others can only imagine. They have come out on the other side of this cancer journey as MY HEROES!

Our oldest son, who is a junior in high school, has decided that he wants to pursue a career in medicine. Our daughter is always the first one to arrive on the scene when one of her classmates gets hurt. Our middle child wants to befriend those around him who don't have a lot of friends.

They are my motivation..... Thanks for letting me tell my story.

Tallahassee, Florida