Email
Print
Family grows closer through trial of cancer
Contributed photo
Sue Blackman (middle) stands with her daughter, Julia Whitney (left) and mother Doris Miller (right) at a Relay for Life event in New York. All three women, and Sue's husband, Bob, are cancer survivors.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: October 6, 2009
CONCORD - Being a cancer survivor can be a double-edged sword.
On one side, the term gains immediate respect, but on the other side it brings great pause. Unfair as it may be, some families have more than their fair share of cancer. Sue Blackman was 36 years old in 1986, and had a loving husband, and two teenage children.
Life was pretty normal for the stay-at-home mom.
Before moving to Concord, the family called Norwich, in upstate New York, home. For the Blackman family spring that year had just begun, and they were enjoying vacation at a North Carolina beach for Easter.
"I had gone like a week without wearing a bra, between bathing suits, and the terry cloth rompers that were all the rage back then. We were in bed one night when I said to Bob, 'My right breast does not feel right'," Sue said. "It felt heavy. I wasn't even comfortable touching the breast. I knew there was something wrong."
She had a mammogram done in Sept. 1985, because of fibrocystic breasts, meaning her breasts had some lumpiness and discomfort, but the condition is benign.
The mammogram, at that time, didn't reveal anything suspicious.
Returning home from her trip she felt she should immediately dealt with the issue. A new mammogram and biopsy confirmed the worst of her fears. It took only seven days from the time she called her doctor; to the time she had surgery to remove her right breast.
It was called a "modified radical" mastectomy. The doctor felt the lump had to be extremely fast growing since it wasn't anywhere on the September mammogram.
So the doctor ordered a bone scan, just to make sure the cancer hadn't spread. Two weeks after surgery she met with the oncologist, and two weeks after that she began a 12 month, 48 weeks, two- weeks-on-two-weeks-off regimen of chemotherapy to fight the cancer.
"It became very emotional for me, more so than physical. I went into it thinking if I got through the first treatment I'd be all right. That would be the hardest, but each treatment got harder. It was the only thing I've ever done that didn't get easier," Sue said.
She remembers the burning sensation she felt as the chemo went into her system, and a distinctive odor.
"If you've never had chemo there's no odor, but a lot of us who are taking chemo can smell it," Sue said. "It's just a tough situation."
The whole year of chemo treatments Sue never went alone. Bob was there almost every time, to sit and comfort her.
"The only time he had to miss a treatment he was traveling for his company, before he even told me, he made arrangements to have my best friend with me," Sue said.
What made the battle even worse was the chemo threw Sue into early menopause. At 37, Sue had to deal with that as well as the cancer.
Sue did have hope, and a strong example, her mother was a cancer survivor.
Doris Miller, Sue's mom, had been diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1965, and although her mother had died from the same type of cancer, she was a survivor. Today, Doris is a 42 year survivor.
It was a lot for the family to deal with, and the Blackman's two children were 15 and 17 years old.
Although they had a lot of support from family and friends the children still felt the turbulence there family was experiencing.
"My son, David, the youngest, said to me at the time, 'I don't want you to die'. I said to him, just because I have cancer doesn't mean I'm going to die," Sue said.
Julia, her 17-year-old daughter, began to suffer from anxiety attacks.
It was hard for Julia to talk about her feelings about the turmoil the family was in, and the fear she felt.
Sue had their family doctor explain to Julia how to exam her breasts, and what to look for, and he explained to her that if she ever got cancer it would be so far down the road that it wouldn't be anything like the ordeal her Mom is going through.
This was to be a very prophetic statement.
Sue is a 23-year survivor of breast cancer, and her daughter, Julia, 17 years after her mother's battle with breast cancer, began one of her own.
Julia, who still lives in New York, was 31 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and was a single mother with an eight-year-old son.
Things had indeed changed since that conversation with the doctor in 1986, and her path with this disease was different.
Julia had found a lump in her breast, and went to her doctor for a mammogram. They said the test was negative, and sent her home, but Julia knew something was wrong.
The doctors told her to wait a month and see what happened, but because of her mother, she knew she had to follow the feeling she had inside, and push the issue with her doctor.
The lump was cancer.
Julia had a double mastectomy, and had four months of aggressive and intensive chemotherapy. She told her father first, and it hit him very hard.
Since his wife first found her lump, Bob has seen a mother, a sister, and then his daughter fight cancer. It was enough for one family.
"I so wanted a granddaughter, we have three grandsons," Sue said. "When Julia was diagnosed with breast cancer I thought 'Thank God I didn't have a granddaughter and have to go through this again.'"
In May 2008, it was Bob's turn to face cancer. Bob, like a lot of men, has had prostate issues through the years, and the doctor was doing a procedure on him when they found cancer on his prostate.
The doctor was very blunt about breaking the news to Bob.
"By the way, we found cancer," Sue said. "I was scared, but it was a different kind of thing. Prostate cancer is a slow moving thing."
"I accepted it. I had gotten to know him (the doctor) because I had been keeping track of things," Bob said. "It was a wait-and-watch thing, the prostate cancer. They did biopsies, waited to see what the PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) did, but then it shot up."
Bob had a new prostate surgery done by a robot. It is less invasive than the surgery they had been performing. He watched the whole procedure on YouTube, which cut down his anxiety.
"I'm an inquisitive person that way," Bob said.
Using the robot makes recovery easier, but with the procedure the doctor had previously performed, he had to take it extra easy during recovery. Then, came the chemotherapy.
"Mine was totally different from what Sue went through. I had a one shot deal for four months. There it is… but I had hormonal changes, hot flashes, weight gain, mood swings. I had all that, you don't think of all those things happening to you," Bob said.
The Blackmans are a family of survivors. Sue goes back to be checked once a year, and insists "that's the only time I think about it anymore."
Cancer has made Sue stronger, and more independent. Sue's cancer made Julia independent, and helped Julia face her own battle with strength and dignity.
It also changed Sue and Bob's marriage.
"By God I beat cancer, I can do anything," Sue said. "It was a new normal."
It was hard for Bob to grasp at first, this new independence Sue had discovered, but it's easy to see Bob admires it. For Bob, in a way only men would say, his fight with cancer didn't change him at all.
Sue's opinion is different, and she thinks he's mellower. She said he used to keep things bottled up inside, but now he talks about things.
"I think he's learned from my experience. You have to talk about it, and share it. You have to get it out," Sue said.
"I didn't have any choice," Bob said. "People were always talking to me."
It has strengthened their marriage, and brought them even closer. Date night is always Thursday, and they enjoy going out for dinner.
Cancer has also made them advocates.
"It gives you a chance to pay back. If you're helping other people deal with cancer, and set a positive example, it gives you a chance to pay back," Sue said.
Their message to anyone beginning the battle with cancer is "attitude is everything."
The couple feels it's important to have a chance to talk to someone who has been through the ordeal, so you know you're not alone, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. For Sue, it was rainbows that played the most important part in her recovery. One always appeared at the times she felt the most hopeless.
It gave her a sense of peace, and now it's a reminder, they can get through anything together. They both volunteer their time to talk to cancer patients about their experience.
"It's important for them to know it's not the end of the world," Sue said.
Contact reporter Robin L. Gardner:704-789-9140
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Click a region for news specific to that area.
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
Advertisement
