Published: October 14, 2007 01:19 am            

‘It doesn’t ruin your life’

Women battle breast cancer with strength, faith

FAIRMONT — In spite of losing both her breasts to cancer, in spite of the pain of a radiation wound that took a few months to close up, in spite of losing her hair to chemotherapy, Kristin Mascioli remained upbeat as she fought her way back to good health.

The Morgantown resident even let her students at West Preston Middle School in Masontown draw on her head before her hair grew back in. She has a photograph of her with her oncologist, Dr. Jame Abraham, the medical director for the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center, as they both display ear-to-ear grins, prompted by the design on her upper forehead.

“I know this sounds insane, but I’m not sorry this happened to me,” Mascioli said. “I might not look as good, but that’s a small thing in the big picture.”

She hopes others look to her for inspiration, thinking, “‘Gee, she seems to be OK. It didn’t ruin her life.’ It doesn’t ruin your life. It changes it, for sure.”

Now that the month of October has been swathed in the color pink — the color of breast cancer awareness — women are seeing real results, from getting their tumors diagnosed earlier because an ad or TV show prompted them to get a mammogram and from the fundraising efforts that have led to new treatments, if not a cure.

For instance, Tuesday Menas of Grant Town got checked out after she heard Rosie O’Donnell talking exactly a year ago on “The View” about how arm pain — something Menas had been experiencing — could be a sign of breast cancer.

She got it checked out and was diagnosed with breast cancer, which doctors treated with a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. “Everything fell into place, like it was meant to be,” she said.

And women are sharing their stories and exhibiting the strength and the faith that has gotten them through difficult times.

As for Mascioli, she also received her first diagnosis in October — coincidentally, Breast Cancer Awareness Month — in 2003, during a routine mammogram. She had a lumpectomy and radiation.

Then the following April, she found a lump in her breast that turned out to be Stage 3 cancer that never had shown up on a previous mammogram.

“There’s still no medical explanation for it,” she said.

Thus began Mascioli’s journey through her encounter with breast cancer, one that has amazed friends, family and other observers.

“She’s a very upbeat person,” Abraham said. “She’s amazing. She’s an inspiration for me, too.”

Other patients also have faced the disease with the same courage and dignity, Abraham noted.

“Even in the face of breast cancer, they are looking at life, not looking at death,” he said. “They all say after the diagnosis that their life has changed and they look at life with a different perspective. It’s really inspiring.”

Like Gina Stewart, a police officer first class in the Morgantown Police Department. Stewart was 37 when, on Valentine’s Day 2006, a biopsy of her breast tumor did not go well.

Someone told her, “This isn’t something routine. We’re really worried about your tumor. It doesn’t look good.”

It wasn’t. The 6-centimeter tumor had to be shrunk with chemotherapy before it could be removed. Stewart got through the chemo and radiation OK, but a post-surgery drug called Taxotere, which attacks both good and bad cells, made her legs begin to swell from fluid retention.

Then she had to get shots of Neulasta, which helps prevent infection following chemotherapy.

“My standing joke was just to make sure that you keep that Tylenol handy,” Stewart said. “It causes your body to produce more white cells and it makes it feel like your bones are growing and hurts. Not like when you were growing up, but every bone in your body.”

For a few days after taking Taxotere and Neulasta, “You couldn’t touch me. If you touched me, it was so painful I would cry.”

But to hear her talk today, she sounds upbeat, even though she still takes tamoxifen now and will be on that or another medication for a total of five years.

“I believe we’re all put into situations we can handle,” she said. “If I lean on my faith and God, that’s part of my faith. There is nothing I am given that I can’t conquer as long as I know that.

“And honestly, death itself doesn’t scare me. I know someday I’m going to heaven. Whenever it is time, that is not an issue with me.”

That does not mean a breast cancer diagnosis is easy or that women do not struggle with it.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘I’m going to die,’” Menas said. “It was very overwhelming. We got through it. I’m just trying to stay positive. Being positive has a lot to do with recovery. I try not to let the bad days get to me.”

Menas’ ordeal also brought her a silver lining — she and her husband, Matt, got to meet O’Donnell. Menas sent a message to the comedian’s blog after her husband gave a speech at a survivor’s dinner.

“When it was time for me to read up on information — they give you so much information, you come home with armloads — I was so overwhelmed,” Menas said. “He read everything, and had it highlighted and bookmarked. He became an expert. My doctor was so impressed that he knew how to ask the right questions.”

During his remarks, Matt Menas also mentioned that he wished he could thank O’Donnell personally.

“That’s when I wrote to Rosie,” Menas said.

An assistant contacted Menas and asked if she could travel to Columbia, Md., for a Cyndi Lauper concert at the Merriweather Post Pavilion.

It happened to occur on the couple’s wedding anniversary, but they did not mind. They got fourth-row tickets and VIP backstage passes. Menas gave O’Donnell a Relay for Life T-shirt and she signed Menas’ as well.

“She got me an ice water,” Menas said. “She saw that I was having a hot flash. She’s just very kind.”

Now Menas tries to eat healthier and also exercise. She will be on Arimidex, a low-dose chemo pill, for five years. She already had started having hot flashes before then, and the medication intensified them.

“I feel like I have crackling going on inside of my head,” she said. “It’s like a pot on the stove and you turn it on high.”

She also has been retaining fluid, which causes her ankles and shoes to swell. She takes another medication to help control it.

“My shoes don’t always fit,” she said. “But it’s the price you pay for decreasing your chances of ever getting breast cancer again.”

As for Mascioli, she found comfort in a pair of Harley-Davidson boots that a friend got for her and which she outfitted with pink shoelaces.

“I was bald, throwing up with big holes where my breasts used to be,” she said. “Physically, I was a wreck. I was bloated with steroids. But I’d look down at my feet with those boots and say, ‘It will be OK. You will get through this.’ And I did.”

E-mail Mary Wade Burnside at mwburnside@timeswv.com.



Goals: Step up fundraising, awareness

By Mary Wade Burnside

Times West Virginian

FAIRMONT — As of Friday, Winter Dawn Morin was still mulling over which bra to wear today at Kaleidoscope’s third annual Brassiere Bazaar, which she helped found two years ago to raise money for women with breast cancer.

One features artist Frido Kahlo and her husband, Diego Rivera, while another, called “Brahide,” celebrates her Texas heritage, complete with fringe and appliqués and cowboy boots.

“I’m not sure whether I’m going funky or solemn,” Morin said. “I’ll see how I feel Sunday.”

But Morin, who founded Art & Soul in Fairmont, now Vittoria & Banks, before moving out of state, knows she will be at the Brassiere Bazaar, which begins at 4 p.m. at Christopher’s Banquet and Conference Center, where she will “put on my bra and strut my stuff.”

As she did for last year’s event, which raised $1,400, Morin traveled back to Fairmont for the Brassiere Bazaar. This year, Morin said, she hopes the group raises $2,000 for breast cancer patients’ special needs.

“It’s for the quality-of-life issues, things that insurance doesn’t pay for,” Morin said. “The women we aid use it for massages, pedicures, dinners out, maybe going to a movie or having a pizza. All the money goes to that.”

A board of directors looks over requests and decides which ones to grant, Morin noted.

Tickets at the door at Christopher’s, located at 104 Van Kirk Drive, cost $27.

The Brassiere Bazaar is just one event held in observance of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (www.nbcam.org), which was started in 1985 to prompt more women to get screened and also to heighten fundraising. In addition to events, breast cancer screening opportunities will be available.

Also beginning at 4 p.m. today, the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center in Morgantown will hold its sixth annual Evening of Celebration dinner at Lakeview Golf Resort & Spa. Sherry Stoneking, public relations manager for the cancer center, said reservations maxed out this week at 528, by far the most ever attendees. The previous highest attendance had been about 350, she said.

“I think the word has continually gotten out there,” she said. “We did a lot of promoting for it. We really covered our bases in terms of getting the word out. And we’re building on the previous years.”

And students at Fairmont State University spent this past week having fun during homecoming activities, but they also were raising money for breast cancer causes, specifically, the Betty Puskar Breast Care Center in Morgantown.

“We just took a little vote in student government on what we wanted to raise money for,” said Monica Monroe, vice president of the student body. “We thought about Caritas House and the local hospital, but we thought about it being breast cancer awareness month and we thought it would go hand in hand.”

Last year, students raised $2,000 for a domestic violence shelter. Events this year included a Bike Night, which included a motorcycle show with a $5 donation. Plus, queen and king entries had to make a donation in order to participate.

“We don’t have a minimum, but really, everybody tries really hard,” Monroe said. “If they don’t turn in any money, they are disqualified.”

Just like the FSU students, other businesses and groups have decided to turn everyday events into fundraisers. The West Virginia University women’s soccer team declared its Oct. 7 game a “Pink Out” in observance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, in which they asked fans to dress in pink.

Furthermore, they donated $8,000 to the Betty Puskar Breast Care Center at half-time, money earned during a weekend of soccer events last spring.

And Spa Roma at Lakeview Golf Resort & Spa has been distributing cards during October to remind clients to do self-breast exams and also provide $5 off of a service when the card is returned to the spa.

Finally, area caregivers will be offering free screenings and events in conjunction with the month.

The Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center will hold discussions on a variety of topics at 6 p.m. Tuesdays in the waiting area of the Betty Puskar Breast Care Center. Topics include:

Tuesday: hereditary risks for breast cancer and breast cancer prevention

Oct. 23: surgical aspects in breast cancer

Oct. 30: lymphedema issues and radiation therapy

Also, the Monongalia County Health Department will provide free breast exams, breast cancer education and mammogram referrals at the health department from 4-7 p.m. Tuesday. Call 598-5123 to schedule an appointment.

E-mail Mary Wade Burnside at mwburnside@timeswv.com.



Relationship between estrogen, breast cancer complex

By Mary Wade Burnside

Times West Virginian

FAIRMONT — Tuesday Menas started taking estrogen in late August 2006 after having her ovaries taken out. Two months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The relationship between estrogen and breast cancer is a complex one. For instance, some consider taking birth control pills that contain estrogen to be a risk factor for the disease, but others believe early screening that takes place when a woman goes to the doctor to get the prescription may skew those numbers.

And according to the Sprecher Institute for Comprehensive Cancer Research at Cornell University, one study showed that women who develop breast cancer tend to have higher levels of estrogen in their bodies.

However, Menas said, doctors do not believe that she could have developed breast cancer so quickly after beginning her estrogen treatments.

“They said the cancer probably had been in there a while but maybe the estrogen boosted it to come out,” said the Grant Town woman. “I guess doctors know more than I do. But I felt one had to do with the other.”

Breast cancer tumors are either estrogen positive or estrogen negative, and in Menas’s case, hers was estrogen positive. That also meant it was easier to treat.

“Estrogen positive tumors tend to have a better prognosis,” said Dr. Jame Abraham, medical director for the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center at West Virginia University and director of the comprehensive breast cancer program.

“It doesn’t mean the body is producing too much estrogen. It means that type of tumor is sensitive to estrogen or fed by estrogen.”

The treatment entails taking a medication such as Arimidex, which decreases the amount of estrogen the body makes, or tamoxifen, which, Abraham said, “limits the estrogen exposure to the cell.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov), 186,722 women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, the latest year for which data is available. That same year, 40,954 women died from the disease. The number of diagnoses rose over the 2003 figures by more than 5,000, but the number of deaths decreased by about 700.

And although the likelihood of developing breast cancer can be inherited, that usually is not the case, Abraham said.

“Ninety percent of the people who come to my clinic have sporadic breast cancer, so it’s not due to genes,” he said. “It’s due to multiple factors, such as hormones, the lifestyle, or exercise or smoking.”

Despite the fact that after nonmelanoma skin cancer, breast cancer is the deadliest form of cancer in women, strides have been made in diagnosis and treatment. Thirty years ago, according to the National Institutes of Health, 75 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer survived the disease for at least five years. Now that number has grown to 90 percent.

Edna Six has the ability to compare cancer treatments in the middle and the end of the last century. A breast cancer survivor since 1992, she actually had been a 40-year survivor of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, with which she was diagnosed in 1952, when she learned she had breast cancer.

She received radiation and cobalt treatments for the Hodgkin’s. “The way they give radiation is totally different than what I had,” said Six, 85, of Boothsville. “When I took it, they couldn’t pinpoint one thing. It was a big block that they put on your chest, and it just burned the skin.”

Six recovered from that, but in 1992, she had a lump under each arm. Doctors told her it was nothing, but after the lumps got sore and began to hurt, a doctor took them out and found cancer.

This time, she did not have radiation because she had heart trouble and instead was treated with a lumpectomy and chemotherapy. She took tamoxifen for eight years and then went off of it. Then in 2002 she found another lump and repeated the process.

“It was just a little lump,” she said. “It was in the breast, not under the arms. Needless to say, it was quite a shock all that time.”

Five years later at age 85, she considers herself recovered. “I’m able to get out and go work on the lawn and do almost anything I like to do. I feel so blessed through all of this. It didn’t shake me when they told me what it was. Maybe it was because I already had dealt with the other.”

E-mail Mary Wade Burnside at mwburnside@timeswv.com.

        

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