Double click image above for an audio slideshow about Sue's battle with breast cancer.
Below is the story that appeared in the Meadville Tribune on Oct. 1, 2009 to kick off Brest Cancer Awareness Month.
Surviving breast cancer
By Richard Sayer
meadville tribune
A woman rides in the passenger seat of a car heading south down Interstate 79 in the summer of 2005 — her bald head leaning back on the seat as her eyes look out in the direction of the road — her husband at the wheel.
She sighs!
“I don’t want to do this!”
Her eyes may have been on the road, but she wasn’t looking at it really. Her thoughts were swirling — her children, her grandchildren, her mom who died of Alzheimer’s, her dad of cancer, her dogs, her husband, Ron, beside her — always there. The thoughts flashed by her so rapidly she barely could remember them when asked what she was thinking, but every thought was important. She scrunched herself up in a favorite flannel sheet she calls a sheet blanket and swears it’s the greatest thing ever invented. She closes her eyes.
A few miles later an arm emerges out from the blanket and reaches up to Ron’s shoulder. Turning toward him, she smiles as her eyes stay peeled to him. He is her rock.
Four years ago, at age 53, this ride down the highway to Pittsburgh was a reoccurring trip for Sue Kilburn of Meadville. She had breast cancer.
“It’s not something you think about, dwell on, you just do what you have to,” Sue said.
How she found out
Sue, who is a nurse, knew the importance of early detection and performed monthly self-exams.
She had gone in for her yearly mammogram a few months earlier and, as had happened many times before, the test came back indicating that something needed to be checked further. She wasn’t worried. Her breast tissue, like many other women’s, is fibrocystic — made up of dense unsmooth tissue. Fibrocystic tissue often gives false readings. She had been through this before and thought that’s all this would be this time — more tests and another negative result.
But this time it was different.
“I could tell by the look on the nurse’s face it was cancer,” Sue said.
Her doctor confirmed her fears when he told her she had the weekend to decide — lumpectomy (removal of the cancer, hoping to get it all) or mastectomy (removal of the whole breast, hoping that would be the best way to rid her body of the disease).
“The words ring out unlike anything I have ever experienced before, I find no anger, just feel numb,” Sue wrote in her journal. “Dumbfounded and questioning ... how ... when? It was just a routine mammogram.”
Sue admits everything was just sort of a blur from that point on. On her way home she stopped by the funeral home to make plans, something she felt she had to do to be in control.
When she got home she jumped on the Internet.
“I basically lost that weekend, I looked up everything I could. I knew that cancer was not going to define me. I lost a father to lung cancer and a mother to Alzheimer’s. I am still a mother, sister, wife, nurse, caregiver, clown, grandmother, aunt, teacher and more, I am still funny, silly, crazy, hardworking, responsible, I still go to church every Sunday, walk my dog every day.” In her journal entries she searched for the strength to fight a cancer that really scared her.
“Today changed my life forever. Every moment, every hair, every day — life is different. Challenges — yes, ups and downs, confusion — yes, but as well — faith, friendship and devotion are now at the top of the list.”
It was caught early and it was a small lump, both very good things. Sue’s diligence about routine checks and self breast exams were key to catching it early before it grew into a large mass.
After the weekend of research, soul searching and coming to grips with now having cancer, Sue decided that a lumpectomy with an aggressive chemotherapy and radiation approach was best for her.
That weekend Sue named her cancer Brussels sprouts.
“I hate Brussels sprouts!: she explained.
Survivor and now educator
Today, Sue is a survivor and works as the clinical nurse breast care educator at the Yolanda G. Barco Oncology Institute through a grant from the Susan G. Komen Foundation. She is taking her personal background and using it to further spread the understanding of breast cancer prevention and early detection.
Her cancer journal gives clues to understanding what one must go through to become a survivor.
“The quagmire of appointments, treatments, testing, the myriad of physicians and who does what and who do I contact when? So much information — I am on overload and I am a medical professional ... but this is a new walk for me. I don’t know the answers or even the options. My prognosis is good but there is always ‘but ...’ — oh please, someone take my hand and show me, lead me and listen to me.”
In 2010 Sue will reach the five-year mark free of the cancer that invaded her body. Five years is a mark everyone hopes to reach as the percentages of reoccurrence drops significantly.
For now Kilburn has taken on her new job to help others find answers to the questions she had when she was diagnosed.
She is hoping that by helping people to a better understanding about prevention, about treatments and about breast cancer that she and the institute can help many of the women of Crawford County and beyond.
This gives the area a person to lead the charge toward breast care health and awareness who has a deep understanding having been through it all herself. And she says treatment has come along way even since she went through it in 2005.
Perhaps someone did take her hand and lead her after all.
Richard Sayer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at [email protected].
______________________________________________________________________________
Early detection is important
meadville tribune
Even though her great-grandmother had breast cancer, her grandfather died of cancer and her mother had cancer, Courtney Kilburn isn’t overly concerned. The Meadville woman in her early 20s shrugged her shoulders during a conversation with her mother, Sue Kilburn, about whether she was doing self breast exams.
She isn’t.
Mom then waved a finger toward her daughter and said, half jokingly, that she was going to have to beat on her until she does.
Sue’s concerns are warranted.
Courtney, like many young women, is not taking the time to check herself once a month despite the fact that early detection is a key factor in surviving breast cancer.
Having a family history of cancer, especially a first degree relative (mother, sister or daughter) with breast cancer nearly doubles your chances. Those with higher risk factors such as family history are urged by doctors and educators to do monthly self breast exams, get yearly check-ups with a physician and undergo yearly mammograms. Even without a family history of cancer, women are urged to get yearly mammograms once they are 40.
Breast cancer is often first noticed when a lump is felt or something abnormal appears on a mammogram. These are not always cancer, but they need to be checked.
If the cancer is caught in its localized state (very small and not spreading) the survival rate is about 97 percent.
To learn more, visit ww5.komen.org.
______________________________________________________________________________
What is cancer and what does chemotherapy do?
meadville tribune
Cells in the body are constantly dividing and replacing bad cells that no longer function completely. This is normal minute-to-minute, day-to-day activity within our bodies.
Cancer is formed when this process of cell-division is out of whack, producing more cells than needed and disrupting the normal function of the body.
Chemotherapy is basically a poison that kills cells. It interferes with the cells by not allowing them to reproduce.
Unfortunately, the poison doesn’t just attack the cancer cells, it attacks all cells. Since cancer cells don’t recover from the chemo as fast as normal cells, the chemo treatments are given in intervals to kill the bad cells but also to give the good cells in the body a chance to recover before the next treatment.
The hope is that the repeated treatment will eliminate the bad cells completely by never letting them reproduce. Eventually they are replaced by the good cells.
The unfortunate part of the treatment is that since the chemo kills perfectly good cells too, the body goes through quite an ordeal. Nausea and fatigue can occur, though everyone reacts differently and some have little or no problems. Loss of hair is common, but certain drugs and chemo recipes used may keep this from happening.
Experts are cautious to paint a negative picture about chemotherapy because they don’t want to scare people away from seeking treatment.
Advances are being made every day and some of the newer drugs and chemotherapies are less traumatic.
______________________________________________________________________________
Did you know?
The number of new breast cancer cases in this country will top 194,000 this year alone, according to the American Cancer Society. Of the total, 2,000 will be men. In Pennsylvania, the number of new cases is expected to top 9,000.
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women after lung cancer.
Although breast cancer death rates have decreased each year since 1990, more than 40,000 women are expected to die of breast cancer this year, with nearly 2,100 of them from Pennsylvania.
meadville tribune
A woman rides in the passenger seat of a car heading south down Interstate 79 in the summer of 2005 — her bald head leaning back on the seat as her eyes look out in the direction of the road — her husband at the wheel.
She sighs!
“I don’t want to do this!”
Her eyes may have been on the road, but she wasn’t looking at it really. Her thoughts were swirling — her children, her grandchildren, her mom who died of Alzheimer’s, her dad of cancer, her dogs, her husband, Ron, beside her — always there. The thoughts flashed by her so rapidly she barely could remember them when asked what she was thinking, but every thought was important. She scrunched herself up in a favorite flannel sheet she calls a sheet blanket and swears it’s the greatest thing ever invented. She closes her eyes.
A few miles later an arm emerges out from the blanket and reaches up to Ron’s shoulder. Turning toward him, she smiles as her eyes stay peeled to him. He is her rock.
Four years ago, at age 53, this ride down the highway to Pittsburgh was a reoccurring trip for Sue Kilburn of Meadville. She had breast cancer.
“It’s not something you think about, dwell on, you just do what you have to,” Sue said.
How she found out
Sue, who is a nurse, knew the importance of early detection and performed monthly self-exams.
She had gone in for her yearly mammogram a few months earlier and, as had happened many times before, the test came back indicating that something needed to be checked further. She wasn’t worried. Her breast tissue, like many other women’s, is fibrocystic — made up of dense unsmooth tissue. Fibrocystic tissue often gives false readings. She had been through this before and thought that’s all this would be this time — more tests and another negative result.
But this time it was different.
“I could tell by the look on the nurse’s face it was cancer,” Sue said.
Her doctor confirmed her fears when he told her she had the weekend to decide — lumpectomy (removal of the cancer, hoping to get it all) or mastectomy (removal of the whole breast, hoping that would be the best way to rid her body of the disease).
“The words ring out unlike anything I have ever experienced before, I find no anger, just feel numb,” Sue wrote in her journal. “Dumbfounded and questioning ... how ... when? It was just a routine mammogram.”
Sue admits everything was just sort of a blur from that point on. On her way home she stopped by the funeral home to make plans, something she felt she had to do to be in control.
When she got home she jumped on the Internet.
“I basically lost that weekend, I looked up everything I could. I knew that cancer was not going to define me. I lost a father to lung cancer and a mother to Alzheimer’s. I am still a mother, sister, wife, nurse, caregiver, clown, grandmother, aunt, teacher and more, I am still funny, silly, crazy, hardworking, responsible, I still go to church every Sunday, walk my dog every day.” In her journal entries she searched for the strength to fight a cancer that really scared her.
“Today changed my life forever. Every moment, every hair, every day — life is different. Challenges — yes, ups and downs, confusion — yes, but as well — faith, friendship and devotion are now at the top of the list.”
It was caught early and it was a small lump, both very good things. Sue’s diligence about routine checks and self breast exams were key to catching it early before it grew into a large mass.
After the weekend of research, soul searching and coming to grips with now having cancer, Sue decided that a lumpectomy with an aggressive chemotherapy and radiation approach was best for her.
That weekend Sue named her cancer Brussels sprouts.
“I hate Brussels sprouts!: she explained.
Survivor and now educator
Today, Sue is a survivor and works as the clinical nurse breast care educator at the Yolanda G. Barco Oncology Institute through a grant from the Susan G. Komen Foundation. She is taking her personal background and using it to further spread the understanding of breast cancer prevention and early detection.
Her cancer journal gives clues to understanding what one must go through to become a survivor.
“The quagmire of appointments, treatments, testing, the myriad of physicians and who does what and who do I contact when? So much information — I am on overload and I am a medical professional ... but this is a new walk for me. I don’t know the answers or even the options. My prognosis is good but there is always ‘but ...’ — oh please, someone take my hand and show me, lead me and listen to me.”
In 2010 Sue will reach the five-year mark free of the cancer that invaded her body. Five years is a mark everyone hopes to reach as the percentages of reoccurrence drops significantly.
For now Kilburn has taken on her new job to help others find answers to the questions she had when she was diagnosed.
She is hoping that by helping people to a better understanding about prevention, about treatments and about breast cancer that she and the institute can help many of the women of Crawford County and beyond.
This gives the area a person to lead the charge toward breast care health and awareness who has a deep understanding having been through it all herself. And she says treatment has come along way even since she went through it in 2005.
Perhaps someone did take her hand and lead her after all.
Richard Sayer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at [email protected].
______________________________________________________________________________
Early detection is important
meadville tribune
Even though her great-grandmother had breast cancer, her grandfather died of cancer and her mother had cancer, Courtney Kilburn isn’t overly concerned. The Meadville woman in her early 20s shrugged her shoulders during a conversation with her mother, Sue Kilburn, about whether she was doing self breast exams.
She isn’t.
Mom then waved a finger toward her daughter and said, half jokingly, that she was going to have to beat on her until she does.
Sue’s concerns are warranted.
Courtney, like many young women, is not taking the time to check herself once a month despite the fact that early detection is a key factor in surviving breast cancer.
Having a family history of cancer, especially a first degree relative (mother, sister or daughter) with breast cancer nearly doubles your chances. Those with higher risk factors such as family history are urged by doctors and educators to do monthly self breast exams, get yearly check-ups with a physician and undergo yearly mammograms. Even without a family history of cancer, women are urged to get yearly mammograms once they are 40.
Breast cancer is often first noticed when a lump is felt or something abnormal appears on a mammogram. These are not always cancer, but they need to be checked.
If the cancer is caught in its localized state (very small and not spreading) the survival rate is about 97 percent.
To learn more, visit ww5.komen.org.
______________________________________________________________________________
What is cancer and what does chemotherapy do?
meadville tribune
Cells in the body are constantly dividing and replacing bad cells that no longer function completely. This is normal minute-to-minute, day-to-day activity within our bodies.
Cancer is formed when this process of cell-division is out of whack, producing more cells than needed and disrupting the normal function of the body.
Chemotherapy is basically a poison that kills cells. It interferes with the cells by not allowing them to reproduce.
Unfortunately, the poison doesn’t just attack the cancer cells, it attacks all cells. Since cancer cells don’t recover from the chemo as fast as normal cells, the chemo treatments are given in intervals to kill the bad cells but also to give the good cells in the body a chance to recover before the next treatment.
The hope is that the repeated treatment will eliminate the bad cells completely by never letting them reproduce. Eventually they are replaced by the good cells.
The unfortunate part of the treatment is that since the chemo kills perfectly good cells too, the body goes through quite an ordeal. Nausea and fatigue can occur, though everyone reacts differently and some have little or no problems. Loss of hair is common, but certain drugs and chemo recipes used may keep this from happening.
Experts are cautious to paint a negative picture about chemotherapy because they don’t want to scare people away from seeking treatment.
Advances are being made every day and some of the newer drugs and chemotherapies are less traumatic.
______________________________________________________________________________
Did you know?
The number of new breast cancer cases in this country will top 194,000 this year alone, according to the American Cancer Society. Of the total, 2,000 will be men. In Pennsylvania, the number of new cases is expected to top 9,000.
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women after lung cancer.
Although breast cancer death rates have decreased each year since 1990, more than 40,000 women are expected to die of breast cancer this year, with nearly 2,100 of them from Pennsylvania.