And the Beat Goes On:: Journal of a Breast Cancer Survivor

And The Beat Goes On

Journal of A Breast Cancer Survivor

Vesta Beatty

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Lincoln Shanghai

And The Beat Goes On Journal of A Breast Cancer Survivor

All Rights Reserved © 2003 by Vesta L. Beatty

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

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ISBN: 0-595-27099-9 (Pbk)

ISBN: 0-595-65651-X (Cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-2340-2 (ebook)

Contents

FOREWORD

PROLOGUE

PART I—PRE-CANCER MARCH 15, 1940 TO SEPTEMBER 8, 2000

Family

School

Religion & Church

Health

Work

Friends

Marriage

Vesta

PART II—CANCER SEPTEMBER 8, 2000 TO SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

PART III—POST-CANCER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001…

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX 1

APPENDIX 2

FOREWORD

Who am I and why should you read my book? I am a 63-year-old white female who was born, raised, and lived almost my entire life in Alabama. It would seem, then, that mine would be a very limited and narrow view of the human condition and would offer very little in common with a very large percentage of any potential readerships.

I believe that this is certainly not the case and, if you offer me the opportunity, I can share with you my history, my values, and my philosophy which will show you how these things so well prepared me to deal with the suddenly unexpected horror of the most dreaded C-word, which I was forced to confront at the age of 60.

This confrontation started September 8, 2000. This was five and one-half months into my retirement after I had worked for 43 years; five and one-half months during which we had started enjoying our retirements by taking several mini-vacations with family and sharing at least half our remaining time with friends and family at our lake retreat. It came one week after our 40th anniversary. It came at a time when we had planned two short vacations within the next two months, one with my husband’s family and one with my family. It came at a time when we had planned an extended vacation of two months for just the two of us in Australia after the forthcoming Christmas and New Year holidays.

Although there is never a good time to be faced with a major health problem, I think the preceding demonstrates that my encounter with cancer came at a time when we were especially happy and pleased with our prospects for the future. We were, therefore, doubly shattered with the prospect of dealing with a potentially life-threatening medical condition. Yet we feel that we have faced the problem, endured the surgery and follow-up chemotherapy and reconstruction surgery, realized the very best outcome possible, and are again anticipating our future.

I look forward to sharing with you how we arrived at our current condition. I also am hopeful that through this sharing I will help others to be better prepared to face similar situations. I am, like all of you, one of God’s children; flawed, weak, and searching to live my life so that I can be happy and perhaps add a little to the happiness and well being of others. I pray that this book will be a vehicle to aid me in this search. Yet the book is being born not because you need to read it but because I need to write it. May we both benefit from this endeavor.

PROLOGUE

September 11, 2001 will always be for me a day and a date that invokes two very strong and totally contradictory feelings. As with all Americans I was astounded, shocked, very angry and extremely sad as the news of the day evolved and we discovered the total horror that was the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC. I think no American can say other than that September 11, 2001 along with December 7, 1941 are the most significant and saddest days in American history.

However, for me it was also possibly the happiest day of my life to that point. How can that possibly be true? That morning at 8:10 I had an appointment at UAB radiology. I had my annual mammogram plus ultrasound on my left breast and had a normal report on both before I left the premises. You, perhaps, can understand the significance of that report and the reason it caused such joy for me in light of the events that followed my previous annual mammogram on Friday, September 8, 2000. I was now officially a survivor in my mind. I was alive and healthy one year after my bout with breast cancer.

In 2000 I had delayed my annual physical exam and mammogram until the Friday after Labor Day, September 8, 2000. This was less than a month later than my previous exams in August 1999. My physical exam was unexceptional and strictly routine. However, I then went to the radiology department at Baptist Montclair Hospital and knew I was in trouble before I left there about three hours later.

The technician did three views of each breast. I was not surprised nor upset when she told me that I would need to come back in for a redo on the right breast. I have fibrous tissue in my breasts and it is always difficult to get enough compression to get a good reading. However, the tech came back again after the second session and told me that they were scheduling me for ultrasound. I began to have increasing feelings of unease which escalated drastically when they got me into ultrasound and kept me in there over 45 minutes. They then sent me back for another x-ray session on that right breast and then sent me home. They had found a mass in my right breast and thought I would need a biopsy.

I had arrived at the radiology department a little before 11:00 and it was almost 2:00 when I left there. My breasts were sore and uncomfortable, I was feeling badly used and put upon, I was more than a little scared, and I was really hungry. So I, the ultimate 60-year-old healthy eating nut, saw a Sonic drive-in and reverted to my 16-year-old self. I pulled right in and ordered a chili-cheese-dog and a peach milkshake. At that point I was again a child of the 50s and felt much better after pigging out on my version of soul food. I was able to convince myself that, even if they had discovered a mass, it was benign and everything was going to be OK.

I went home and told Bob what had happened and he immediately wanted to call his sister and my sister just older than me. I was over my scare and felt like I could take care of this little bump in the road without scaring anyone else. My sister and my niece and Bob’s niece had already planned a big party for family and friends on Saturday, September 16, 2000 to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. I didn’t want to put a cloud over this happy occasion and was just going to wait until after the biopsy and give everyone the good news of the big scare that turned out OK. Maybe I had convinced myself that everything was going to be OK and that I didn’t need anyone. However Bob did need someone at this point, so he went ahead and made his phone calls and established a support system that he needed and I couldn’t give him because my condition was the source of the problem, and I’m afraid he was imagining the worst possible outcome.

After the radiologist had reviewed the x-rays and the ultrasound, my doctor was contacted and she, in turn, contacted me. We picked a surgeon on her recommendation and the biopsy was scheduled for Tuesday, September 19, 2000 in his office. This appointment was three days after our party.

The party was a huge success and I was still feeling OK with the situation so I went for the biopsy by myself. I was pleased with the surgeon because he was a caring person who treated me as person rather than strictly as patient. He also allowed me to be an informed member of the team responsible for my health. He explained the procedure he was going to do. It was a fairly new procedure called a core biopsy and did not involve near the shock and trauma to the system as a regular surgical biopsy. Using the x-rays, he could see the position and size of the mass and felt sure he could hit it without having to go to radiology and do it on a live screen. He used a small surgical tool to make a deep incision right in the edge of the aureole of my right breast. He then inserted a tool that was about the size of a syringe, which worked on the same principle as taking a core sample of soil to test for the presence of mineral deposits. Even though he had applied local anesthesia prior to making the incision, when he took the sample, the pressure was like a professional boxer had landed a clean blow right into my chest. There was no pain per se but it was darned uncomfortable for a few seconds. He then took a second sample, put a band-aid over the incision and sent me home. He said he should have the results and would call me at home in two days. He was also optimistic that it would prove to be a benign mass.

So I went home in a fairly positive frame of mind and went about my usual routine for the remainder of Tuesday, all day Wednesday, and until about noon Thursday. After noon, I became progressively more irritated and agitated. Why hadn’t the surgeon called me? Finally about 4:00 I called because I was afraid the office staff was going to be gone before too much longer, and I certainly did not want to wait until Friday to get the verdict. When I called and asked for my surgeon by name, I was put on hold and then found myself talking to the senior partner in the group. My surgeon had been on call all week, so they had given him the entire day off. That was perfectly understandable but their scheduling did not factor in that, for me, it was very important that he be at work on that day. The senior surgeon apologized profusely for the scheduling and the fact that I had to be notified over the phone by a complete stranger that my biopsy was positive for breast cancer. Bob had read my increasing unease and had picked up on a second phone. Both of us were devastated to receive this unwelcome news. We were assured that my surgeon would be back in the office Friday and that an appointment was being scheduled for me as early as possible in the morning so that we could go over everything with him in detail.

During the remainder of the call, Bob and I were both crying. After we hung up, he came in where I was, pulled me up, and we held each other as we continued to cry. We talked quietly for a while as we tried to calm ourselves down. Then he said Maxine (my sister) and Betty (his sister) would both be waiting to hear our results. I could not talk to anyone at this stage so he made the calls and shared with them what we knew and then assured them that we would keep them informed after our Friday appointment.

And it was our appointment. From that date through my full treatment regime, Bob went with me to every medical appointment through May 2001. We were embarking on a joint journey whereby we gave our lives totally to the medical profession for the next eight months.

PART I—PRE-CANCER MARCH 15, 1940 TO SEPTEMBER 8, 2000

Family

I believe we should start by introducing myself to you, by giving you insight into development of the person I was at the time of my cancer. To accomplish this I need to tell you about my family, my schooling, the role of religion in my life, my health prior to the cancer, my work experiences, my marriage, and my close friends. I hope to keep this introduction brief and not too boring.

Without a doubt, family is the most important thing in my life. My family is large, often noisy, sometimes nosey, but always there when needed.

My mother, Neatie Lee Pierce Lawrence, and my father, Vester Clarence Lawrence, were married March 21, 1926. At the time of their marriage, my father was 23 years old and my mother was 15 ½. I don’t know if theirs was a happy marriage. I know it was productive as there were 7 children. The 3rd child was a boy, Mack Edward, who died just short of 9 months of age. So I tend to think of myself as being the youngest of 6 siblings because Mack Edward only ever existed for me as an abstract rather than a real person.

My oldest sister, Willodean or Dean, is 13 years older than me. She also married at 16 years of age when I was 3 ½. So she has always been more like a second mother figure in my life. This effect was increased by the birth of her son when I was 4 ½. I now had a little brother and was no longer the youngest in the family. It became even truer when she and her husband built a house next door to us when I was six. Her son called her Mother but he called my mother Mama because all the rest of us did. The two of us each had two mothers. This had its good points but was especially bad when it came to being disciplined because we got caught twice as often when we misbehaved. But I must say the good far outweighed the bad and Dean and I have continued to be close.

Christeen or Tip is only 14 months younger than Dean so she was also married and gone from home by the time I was six. I don’t remember much of the first five years of my life but I do remember Tip still being home. She graduated high school in May 1946 and was married in June 1946. However, she was there to take me to my first day of first grade in August 1946. However, she and her husband lived away from my hometown of Haleyville for much of the time until I was 14 and we saw them much less frequently. I well remember though that she was a little less lenient with her younger siblings than was Dean. I don’t remember that she ever took a switch to me but I do remember one time when she switched Maxine. That was enough to cause me to never want to do anything to make her angry because I didn’t want the same thing. Nonetheless, we have always had a good, loving relationship.

Mack Edward was born and died in 1930. Then two years later Edgar Isaac or Buddy came along. I can only say he was my big brother (eight years older than me) and I loved him dearly. There was never enough money for me to have an allowance, but Buddy would pay me a quarter to shine his shoes. I’m quite sure he could have done it more quickly himself and have had better results. Yet, even as a very young man he saw that I needed to feel useful and productive so he gave me a job to do, took time to show me how to do it right, and then paid me to reward my efforts. I can still put a mean spit-shine on a pair of shoes.

Just as Buddy was my big brother, Doris was my big sister. She is six years older than I am so I always went to her in grade school when I got in trouble. She will never let me forget that in first grade I very often lost my lunch money. She would give her money to me, and then she and Maxine would each have a coke and split a package of peanut butter crackers using Maxine’s lunch money. This went on until Mama learned about it. She then tied my money in a handkerchief and pinned the handkerchief to my undershirt so I would get to school with it.

Doris also liked to work outside so I would be outside with her and never developed many domestic skills until I was out on my own. In retrospect, I guess Doris and I kind of ganged up on Maxine. She is 3 ½ years older than I am and preferred to work inside cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, etc. She also was always terrified by bugs, mice, snakes, etc. Because Doris wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t afraid either and often I scared Maxine by trying to give her a bug. One time I found a dead mouse in a mousetrap and chased her all over with it. She could well outrun me, but I could stay close enough that she couldn’t completely get away from me.

Yet she must have forgiven me my many sins against her. I will never forget what she did for me when I was the female lead in the senior play. I deserved the part and I was really good in it, but I really, really didn’t have a nice dress to wear for the performances. I went to visit her in Birmingham for a weekend and we went shopping together. I knew we were buying clothes for her to wear to work and she bought several nice dresses. But later she brought those dresses home and told me to pick out the one I wanted to wear to be in the play. Once I quit being a bratty younger sister, we became and remain best of friends. Although she will probably tell you that I never quit being a brat.

So you can see that to me family means a group of people who love you warts and all. They know your strengths and weaknesses. They encourage the strengths and forgive the weaknesses.

Yet our family would never have had the opportunity to be a family if it had not been for the love, strength, and determination of our mother. You see my father began to be absent from home quite a lot before I was a year old. His absences became more frequent and longer in duration over the next months. I am told that he left home forever on December 7, 1941. (Until I started writing this book it had not occurred to me that two of the most important days in the life of our country have also been days of great significance in my personal life—Pearl Harbor Day and 9/11.) He went to Arkansas and obtained a divorce from my mother. Very shortly thereafter, he married again and within the year he had started his second family of children.

My father was a farmer and a rural entrepreneur, as he also owned a sawmill. Therefore our family should have been fairly comfortable financially. Yet, it was the Great Depression plus I’m not sure that my father was a very good manager of his personal finances. So the young and growing Lawrence family suffered financially during the 1930s, as did many Americans. Yet my father would never avail himself of any of the aid programs or work programs offered by the government. He was a staunch Republican and he wanted nothing that came from Mr. Roosevelt’s Democrats. It seems odd to deprive your family of potential benefits simply because of a difference in political viewpoints. Political beliefs are more important than family? I don’t think so!

According to my older siblings, my father was a stern disciplinarian and at times his punishment was cruel. He had a violent temper and when he doled out physical punishment, sometimes the punishment did not end until his temper was exhausted. His treatment of his children probably was not considered abusive at the time. He was a well-respected member of the community and a deacon in the church they attended.

Yet when he went to the Probate Judge of Winston County and asked for a divorce, Judge Dollar, who knew both my father and my mother, refused to grant him a divorce. He then went to Arkansas where he had an uncle. He established residency by giving his uncle’s address, and then returned to Alabama. At the end of the six-month period required by Arkansas law, he went back to Arkansas and obtained a divorce there.

I am told of a second thing that indicates that prevailing community opinion felt that my father was on the wrong side of the issue of the dissolution of his marriage with my mother. When my mother could not obtain employment in the Haleyville textile mill, a lady in the community sent her to Cordova where there also was a textile mill. Her son, a Mr. Glaze, and a Mr. Barnett of Haleyville both worked at the Cordova mill. These two men were two of my father’s best friends, yet they were instrumental in my mother obtaining a job there.

My mother had been wife, mother, and helpmate, as she would start her work in the fields as soon as her morning chores were completed in the house.

She and my father were married 15 years and produced 7 children. So why did their marriage end? Was my father an evil man? How can we explain away the fact that he left a wife and six children and never provided any financial support for them?

We can only speculate on the cause of his actions. We can see that the first six children were spaced out with no more than a two-year gap between their births, then 3 ½ years before the next child, then POOF no daddy less than two years later.

I don’t know if my mother had difficulties with the first two children. I have been told that she started having labor pains at least a month early with Mack Edward but could not give birth. My father summoned a doctor to come to our house. Before his arrival, the labor pains had stopped. Yet when the doctor arrived, he recommended and my father agreed to induce labor over the objections of my mother. Mack Edward was never a healthy baby and his young life ended after eight months and twenty-eight days. My mother always thought that his death occurred because he was delivered too early.

I again do not know if there were problems with the birth of Buddy. However, Tip was six years old when Doris was born and she remembers that Mama was in labor for at least two days. She also remembers that a doctor told Daddy at that time that Mama had blood clots in her legs and that she should not have additional children. My father’s response was something like, If God wants her to have babies, she will have babies. Then came Maxine two years later then my birth was 3 ½ years later. I have also been told that I was delivered by a physician who told my mother that if she wanted to live to raise the children she had, she should not have any more. My mother was a good wife, but she was also a very good mother. I will let you draw your own conclusions.

I only have access to