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Breast Cancer Survivors: 4 stories of inspiration
by Andrea L. Zrimsek
With breast cancer affecting one in every eight women in the United States, it’s become difficult to find anyone whose life has not been touched in some way by this disease. It does not discriminate based on age, race, income or fitness level and a diagnosis can change your entire world in a matter of seconds.
Though many succumb to cancer each year, with early detection and increased public awareness, many women are now finding their cancer early, battling it head on and emerging a winner. For these four survivors, losing the battle with breast cancer was simply not an option.
South Fayette School District health and physical education teacher Judy Gima always wondered about the validity of the mammogram vans that traveled around the area. Despite her doubts, when one was scheduled to come to her school she signed up. Then when it got to be her turn, the machine broke.
“I said don’t worry about it, I’ll wait a year, no big deal,” Gima says.
But the technician wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted Gima wait for another van to arrive: A request that Gima now realized may have saved her life.
She received a call a few days later saying that doctor’s found a suspicious spot and they wanted her to come for another mammogram. She had the second mammogram and a needle biopsy and was told on Christmas Eve 1997 that they thought it was cancer. Then two days later it was confirmed. She had Stage 0 breast cancer in her left breast.
She had a lumpectomy shortly after the new year and six weeks of radiation. As an active woman, she says the hardest part of the treatment was the boredom of sitting home all day. Fortunately, Gima says watching former President Bill Clinton deny his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky provided her with plenty of entertainment.
Gima spent five years taking Tamoxifin and is now cancer free. She knows finding her cancer was a stroke of luck and she considers herself fortunate that it was caught so early.
“This was such a tiny little spot that could have been missed so easily. I guess it was kind of a miracle.”
Throughout her experience, Gima says she never thought negatively. And now she shares this message with other women by volunteering with the American Cancer Society. Gima raises money each year in the Relay for Life and is always willing to help out other cancer patients in need.
After her own bout with cancer, Gima cared for her mother who had Parkinson’s Disease, her father who had esophageal cancer, her mother-in-law who had lung cancer and her aunt who had asbestos related lung cancer. She says seeing her loved ones suffer made her even more grateful for that one person who insisted she stay and have that mammogram.
“Getting diagnosed with cancer was the shock of my life, but I’m still here to tell my story and I’m grateful for every day.”
Pittsburgh-area native Debbie Brisentine doesn’t believe in luck. There’s no doubt in her mind that God was the reason she found her breast cancer.
As a DD cup for most of her adult life, Brisentine thought about having a breast reduction for many years. It all started in 1995 when her sister, Mary, had the procedure. Seeing how pleased Mary was with the results, Brisentine began dreaming of a smaller bustline that would alleviate her back pain.
But for various reasons, including her husband not wanting her to go under the knife, Brisentine put off having the surgery. Then when she began approaching her 50th birthday in 2003, she adopted a new diet and exercise program and shed 13 pounds.
“Now I was top heavy so I decided to look into it,” she says.
Soon Brisentine, who has no history of breast cancer in her family, had the surgery and emerged with what she called her new perky C cups. Not to mention the removal of five pounds off of her chest immediately alleviated her back pain.
The tissue that was removed was sent to pathology, and upon examination doctors found ductal carcinoma in situ. Meaning there was cancer in the ducts but it hadn’t spread to the tissue.
“This was the earliest possible stage it could have ever been found. If I hadn’t had the reduction, they told me the cancer wouldn’t have shown on a mammogram for five years.”
Since the cancer was caught so early, Brisentine did not need radiation or chemotherapy. Instead she had a mastectomy in her right breast and chose reconstructive surgery. This happy-go-lucky administrative assistant at her church in Ohio now jokes that she is probably the only person who ever went in for a breast reduction and came out with an implant.
Now, one year later, Brisentine is considered to be cancer free, although her chance or getting cancer in her left breast is increased for the next five years. But this does not stop her from living her life to the fullest.
“I thought about having the surgery for so many years and apparently God wanted it done now so that the cancer could be caught. It just goes to show you that you can’t outdo God.”
Bernice Gourley is not the type of woman to let anything get her down. Despite rheumatoid arthritis in her hands, this 67-year-old retired teacher still has a wicked backhand, swims several days a week, skies each winter and takes frequent bike trips with her husband.
Even a diagnosis of breast cancer would not slow her down.
Gourley was 60 years old when she first noticed a rash on the underside of her right breast. But she didn’t give it much thought. Her mother had just passed away and her daughter just got married, so she had her mind on other things.
“I was at the top of my game,” she says. “I felt good and I swam every day. I had no reason to think it was anything.”
Then she went in for her scheduled mammogram and her doctor diagnosed her with stage 3-B breast cancer. Since she was at a later stage, she had to have aggressive treatment that included 12 weeks of chemotherapy, a mastectomy, another round of chemotherapy and 33 treatments of radiation.
But Gourley didn’t mind. One week after been diagnosed she traveled to the Teetons with her sister. She says she merely did what she had to do each day to fight the disease.
Since she and her husband, Clancey, were both retired they even went to Florida for a month during her treatment. She says the sunshine and warm weather lifted her spirits after a dreary Pittsburgh winter. Even though by her own description her weight loss and hair loss made her look like a refugee, her sunny disposition would not be compromised.
“I flew down because I couldn’t ride in the car and when I got there I bought some hats and scheduled several massages and went on with life.”
A resident of Mt. Lebanon, Gourley opted not to have any reconstructive surgery after her mastectomy because she says it just wasn’t that important to her, and she does not regret that decision seven years later. She is happy to be alive and, while a grandma to many, will never be spotted in a rocking chair watching live go by.
Having lost of
her three daughters at a young age, Gourley says that even though cancer can
be rough, it’s nothing compared to losing a child. In fact, she says her
cancer diagnosis probably made her more reckless in life because, as she
says, she now jumps into everything thinking, “what’ s the worst that can
happen?”
Linda Bell
As a registered nurse and the daughter of a breast cancer survivor, Linda Bell was highly aware of the importance of regular mammograms and self-breast exams. In February 1998 she had her scheduled mammogram and it came back normal. Then in August of that year Bell got out of the shower one day and noticed a puckering on her left breast.
“I thought ‘this is weird, that wasn’t here yesterday.’”
She pushed on the puckering and instead of it feeling soft like cysts she had years before, it felt hard. And she knew this wasn’t a good sign.
“I immediately called my mom and said I think I have breast cancer.”
Bell scheduled a mammogram the next day and, to her surprise, it came back normal. But since doctors felt a lump they scheduled an ultrasound. The ultrasound was inconclusive, but it did show a mass that they believed was 2 1/2 centimeters and possibly Stage 2 breast cancer.
Having just turned 40 and recently divorced, Bell says she was more worried about not being able to work, than she was about cancer. “Some people had me dead and buried but I knew this wasn’t a death sentence,” says this Bethel Park resident.
She then had a needle biopsy that revealed a 5-centimeter mass in her left breast and cancer in her lymphnodes, which put her in Stage 3. She had a mastectomy and began aggressive chemotherapy that revealed the cancer metastasized to her rib cage. She was now Stage 4.
Bell’s doctor told her she was an ideal candidate for stem cell replacement. This process wiped out her entire immune system, took pure white blood cells out of her body, froze them for a month, then put them back in.
She says it caused weakness so profound that she cannot put into words. But it also saved her life. Her parents even brought a cake and christened the day of the procedure as her new birthday.
Though the stem cell therapy pumped her with enough chemo to possibly damage her heart and lungs, or even kill her, she emerged with no additional health problems. What she did come away with was a new attitude.
“This changed my whole life. I appreciate life more and don’t get upset about stupid things. I realize each day is a gift.”
Bell says the reason her cancer was so hard to detect was because she had dense breast tissue, which can keep a mass from showing up on a mammogram. And since her tumor was growing inward, her doctor said if she had a large bustline it would have been years before the mass was detected. And by then it probably would have been too late.
“Everybody always talks about having a big chest, but being small breasted truly saved my life.”
