Have you ever thought " I wonder if I could do that"?
I know enough about myself that if I have a desire to do something I can do it. But it has to be interesting to me.
About a month ago Ricki called and said "I am going to walk 60 miles in 3 days. Will you do it with me?" I asked a lot of question and she told me about the 3-Day Walk for the Cure Susan G. Komen Race. This is an event to raise money to find a cure for breast cancer. I told her I would think about it.
Each participant would also have to raise $2,300. That was scary.
I went to the website and looked at the cities for 2010. Dallas/Ft. Worth was the closest. I thought that would work and we maybe could get our sister, Kenna, to join us. That night she called and said she had signed up with her friend in Maryland and they were going to do it in Washington DC.
When I discussed it with Don he was not in favor of it at all. I was upset because I wanted to do it with her.
Ricki called about it several times and she had started her fund raising. They had started a team named "Sisters by Choice". She was excited about it I wanted to support her but Don didn't want me spend the money to fly to Washington DC. I told her we would talk about it when we came up for Easter.
In the meantime, she started her walking routine and she told me that she didn't think one of the girls was going to go through with it and we probably would be able to do it in Dallas. That gave me some hope.
It was real hard to talk to Don about it because he was always so negative about it and I get defensive. He couldn't even imagine why I would want to do it. My reasons are:
- Walk for my mom that is a survivor of breast cancer
- Walk to support Ricki in her exercise and weight lose
- Walk for me to train for a challenging goal with benefits of exercise and weight lose
- Walk for others that have lost their fight, in the fight, or is a survivor of breast cancer.
- Something different
I got signed up and now the hard part starts. I am walking 60 miles in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure on November 5-7. Training and fund raising begins. You know what that means everyone. I need your support to show him I can do it. Help me do that OK.
Jodean's Story
For 13 yrs my Mom was dedicated to taking care of Dad after he had his first heart attack in 1984. This was a full time job and she put her health on the back burner. After dad passed away in 1997, mother then started to catch up on some of her health concerns. In January 1999 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and she choose to have a mastectomy. She has now been free of cancer for 12 years.
This is her journal for that time period:
11/29/98
Dear Kids:
I went last Friday for a Mammogram. Yesterday afternoon the doctor’s office was calling for me to come in to see the doctor. The mammogram isn’t normal. The nurse was talking about a biopsy on Thursday. That is all they would say. Will now more after I see the doctor. I will call you all tonight.
I can take care of this. I’m sure the biopsy is an out patient service.
Will give you all the details later when I know them. No! I don’t need all of you quitting work and coming. I can do this. I have friends here who will go with me.
I love you. Mom.
Dear ones:
A lot has happened to me since the month of December began. I haven’t written about it because I didn’t know where it was going to end.
I went to the doctor’s office the first of December to get a prescription filled. I hadn’t seen him in very long time and he wouldn’t fill it unless I came for an office call. While there I mentioned that I had quite taking the female hormone Estrogen because it made my breast so sore. As the soreness left it felt like there was a knot in my left breast. After an examination, they confirmed that it was something and rushed me into an appointment to have a mammogram.
I have had mammograms since the 1980’s but knew it had been at least two years or more since I had had the last one. When we checked the last on was in 1995. With Ken sick, I didn’t have much time to pay attention to my body if it wasn’t hurting. And I hadn’t had anything to complain about. I don’t even have headaches and probably have never taken a small bottle of aspirin in my whole life. Most of my ache is infected teeth and I know I have to take an antibiotic for them.
On the 18th of December, I went to the hospital and had the mammogram made. As she hung the x-rays on the wall to see, I looked up to see what they looked like. I made a habit of looking at those x-rays when Ken was sick. You may not be an expert radiologist but you can certainly see enough to know when things or normal or abnormal.
When I saw the x-ray of my left breast, with a glob as big as your thumb, which was without color, I knew that didn’t look like the rest of the tissue. The technician is very careful not to tell you anything. She quickly took the pictures down and she didn’t say anything, and I didn’t say anything, but I knew.
She wanted to take another picture or two and then sent me over to the radiologist to see the sonar person. I have had mammograms before and I never took a sonogram. I ask what that was for and she said. “We are looking for any solid mass that may be in your breast.” Very careful avoiding the word tumor or cancer. And I didn’t ask. I knew what she was going to find.
They finished their work and said they would develop the pictures and get back to me. I knew they were not going to be good.
By Monday the doctor’s office was trying to get me by phone to tell me to come in. On Wednesday I went to his office and he told me that the mammogram was not normal. I asked his nurse if I could see the x-rays, she was hesitant and said, “I’m not for sure, I’ve never had anyone ask to see them.” I couldn’t believe people don’t want to look at their x-rays. I said, “Those are my x-rays, they can’t keep me from seeing them.” By this time she looked like she wanted to run. But, she called and they said sure.
The girl who did the mammogram got the x-rays and showed them to me. They gave the bad news away with their voice, body language and patting you. I knew she was trying to be kind, but didn’t want to tell me that it wasn’t a good situation. The doctor does not allow them to do his work and they have to walk a very fine line to stay within their bounds. Yet, she was trying to tell me I had troubles.
I made an appointment to see the Breast Cancer Doctor and he told me that there was a growth in the left breast that would need some attention. It was large and you could see the cobweb legs reaching out from it. It was frightening yet no surprise to me. We made an appointment to do a biopsy on December 21.
I went home and called the kids and told them what we found and that we would go ahead and have Christmas as planned. They were shocked, saddened and worried about me.
We were having our Christmas at Kenna’s in Terrell, Texas, down by Dallas, so on Friday, December 19, I left for Kenna’s about 10:00. It is a five hour drive and I thought that would get me down there about 5:00 when they all got home. Kenna had sent me direction of how to come. I had a map and was confident I could do it.
Her directions would take me through the backcountry in Dallas County and I would miss all that traffic through Dallas. I was to call when I got about twenty miles away and they would come to meet me.
It was beginning to drizzle as I left Jackson county; I saw a little sunshine from Vernon to Wichita Falls and the rest of the time I was in the rain. It was slow and in streaks. I had plenty of time so I wasn’t concerned.
Stopped a few times for the antique stores and got on down to Denton by 3:30 which was just about right. I probably had another 100 miles. Got to McKinney in Collins County and was going east. It was raining pretty well. Came to a little town named Pleasantville and was OK. By this time I was in road construction with two-lane traffic. One lane with orange barrels set up on the right edge, below the barrels was a three-foot drop, no parking lane, and no exits.
As I topped a long hill I could see cars in front of me a half-mile away but nothing close. I was driving about forty miles an hour when I came to the bottom of the hill. Unknown to me they have a problem with water at the bottom of this hill when they get a rain. It all looked like road when I hit it but I found water splashing up from my speed and the depth of the water. Water flew as high as the car and I knew I probably was in trouble. Now remember the construction, the 3-foot drop off and no parking lane. I reached the top of the hill and my car quit right in the middle of the only right lane of traffic. There weren’t a lot of cars, but any cars are too many when they can’t go around you. It just happened that the young man behind me came to my car and offered to push me, he had a guard on his pick up, and he pushed me about a mile until we came to a construction exit. I pulled into it parallel to the road and tried to start the car. It started, so I waved him on. He left. I tried to pull back into the flow of traffic and got my front fender on the road-------------and the car died, never to start again.
Yes, I was frightened but not stupid. I turned on all the signal lights I had and tried to get the Highway Patrol but I was in Texas and the Oklahoma Highway patrol did not answer. Next, I called the operator; told her I was in the lane of traffic in the dark and needed help. Told her where I was, the best I could, and she called the police from the town I had just passed. It took about 15 minutes for them to get to me. He had flashing lights, called the tow truck and in about 15 more minutes, it was hooking on.
In the meantime, I had called Kenna Gay at her house and told her I was being pulled back to Pleasantville. The Tow Truck man was very nice. His wife was in his office and again I was calling Kenna. He thought he could get the car started and I would be OK. I was stopped about two hours getting this mess straightened up. He got the car to running and asked me not to go through anymore water. That was going to be hard as it was pouring down all this time.
I called Kenna that I was leaving Pleasantville.
It is about 8 miles from Pleasantville to the next town. This time I stopped in the next town for gas as I was running low. When I tried to start the car it was very confused and not a bit cooperative. It spit, sputtered, coughed and caught the spark and I got about two blocks down this double land highway when it began to quit. I pulled in a graveled driveway of a welding shop to assess to situation. I could not think about starting on with this trouble. By this time I was getting a bit scared of the dark road and trouble. So, I decided to turn around and go back to the gas station and call Kenna to come after me.
The car would start and run a bit, but die when I tried to start forward. I got up to the edge of the road and discovered I was on this two-way road and I had to be on the other side to turn around. Did you ever find yourself in this situation?
I looked down my side of the road and there wasn’t enough room to go back up the side to the filling station, I had to get across that road. I knew the car would never make it to the turnover in the road, which was probably a mile away. I was petrified. But I didn’t loose my head all together. Just did the most stupid thing I could. I waited until I couldn’t see any cars coming from either direction and I started across that fourlane divider. I made it to the opposite side but it was over some curbs. The car died when I was cross ways in the road. I nearly panicked. I calmed myself down for there were no cars coming. You can bet I was doing some praying. The second time I tried the motor caught and I was straight in the road. It died several times before I got about two blocks to a Dairy Queen. I stopped on their parking lot and thanked God for helping me, and believe me I know he did help me.
I called Kenna and she said I was about 60 miles from her house and she would send Don on over after me. I sat at the Dairy Queen and calmed my nerves and prayed a lot.
When Don got there he raised the hood to look and was trying to find out what he could when a young man about 24 came up in a pick up and asked if we needed help. We sure did and he said he was a mechanic, he tried for two hours to get it to run and decided he’d have to hook it up to a computer to see what was wrong.
Understand this is a man who came driving by that we had never seen, didn’t know and we decided to trust him to help us. He went to see a mechanic who had the computer and he said he would come over on Saturday and look at it. We gave this stranger our keys and our phone number and went on the Kenna’s.
I was so tired by this time I didn’t care what happened to that stupid car. We all fell into bed for it was twelve o’clock by this time. Lori and Jeff’s family, Vicky and Don, Cody and I were all there Friday night. Mac and Ricky’s family came on Saturday.
We had a wonderful day together, had the Christmas tree and dinner and supper together. It is so good to have all the family together. Everybody pitched in and helped Kenna and we all ate too much.
The mechanic with the car called about 11:00 and said the car was ready. Don and Jeff went over and got it and it was Ok. The water had cracked the distributor cap and shorted out some of the electrical things. He was very reasonable in his charges. You just never know when you are going to entertain angels unaware. I know that God was in control because it all worked out so perfect.
Even though it sounds traumatic, I was never out of control. I did what I had to do to get out of the mess I was in. It seemed as though there was always a solution to every problem. I did not panic or even cry. Just kept working to find a solution.
On Sunday, Kenna Gay came home with me to go to the Doctor with me on Monday. We had Cody in his car following us. It got dark on us but we managed to stay together and got home about 10:00.
Monday I went in at 11:00 for a biopsy of the breast. They put me to sleep and took out the tumor. Froze it, so that they could take a biopsy. Before we left the hospital they told us it was malignant. We came home and called all the kids and told them.
At this time, I told my friends and the word was spread to put Jodean on your prayer list. You cannot imagine how many people were praying about that cancerous tumor. I was on prayer lists from several churches in town; Mac’s Sunday school in Tulsa and everyone that heard of our plight. As one friend said, God said prayer could move a mountain, and we are going to move this mountain, and they did.
The Doctor explained they would take the three inch circle that they had removed, freeze it, slice it into thin slices and study it under the microscope for cancer cells. We had seen the feet on the tumor and had a good idea that it was not contained in the tumor. Of course, this was disturbing. It would be a week before I would go back to the doctor to hear what he had to say.
The weather turned cold, icy, freezing the roads and Kenna Stayed until Dec. 24 because of bad weather. I insisted she go on home. She had two weeks vacation and needed to be home to do some things for herself. She was reluctant, but I assured her that I could go back to the Doctor without anyone.
On Sunday, 27th, I called Cody who was visiting his father and Grandmother and asked him if he would go with me on 28th to see what the doctor said. He said he could. I thought it would be a good experience for him to begin to take on some mature responsibilities. He was here by 2:30; we got there by 3:00 waited until 5:00 in the waiting room.
Dr. Katsarses is a specialist in breast Cancer. He has had lots of experience in Baylor Hospital in Dallas before he came here. He talked to us for an hour or more explaining things. He told us the biopsy for the mass came back and they had gotten the cancer. This only means in that one area. You have many cancer cells floating around in your body just waiting to have a party. Now, the time comes to head them off at the corral. The next step is to decide what to do. I chose to have a mastectomy, take all the left breast tissue, lymph nodes and test all that to see if there was any sign of it in the lymph nodes. We will go into the hospital on Thursday at 12:00 to do that. Probably won’t get into surgery until 2:30 as they are always late. There will probably be some chemotherapy and I will loose my hair.
Please put me on your prayer list for this next experience.
Went to day to see about a wig and it will be ready. Oh, how vain can you get? Why worry about your hair when you have your life? Tis only human.
Kenna Gay will come on Thursday and part of Friday, Mac and Ricky will be here on Friday or Saturday, Don and Vicky will be here over the weekend. They are in Ruidoso, NM, for the Christmas vacation and they have no snow. Has been warmer there than we are. They had snow on the ski slopes but not enough.
This gives you an idea of what the past few days have been in my life.
A friend gave me a journal to keep and you know me, I will keep it. Tomorrow is Wednesday and I must tie up the loose ends and clean house and get ready for Thursday.
I’m exhausted from the strain and stress but other wise very well and have never been sick in all this. I have not felt bad, did not feel the cancer except that I had a terrible itch, seems when they removed the cancer it stopped most of the itch. Have no idea if there is any connection or not. The doctor said he didn’t know. He has had women tell him similar stories. Of course, you know the skepticism of doctors because they can’t feel it they aren’t for sure you can. I know what my body says and it has changed.
I’m up in the middle of the night writing this. Now, I can go back to sleep.
Love Jodean.
Dear Ones:
This is Monday afternoon about 1:30. I am home from the hospital and sending you all a hug and kiss. I thought they might let me go to the Skilled Nursing wing of the hospital for a few days but there were some regulations I didn’t fit. I think you have to be in the bed and not able to get up and I have had on my clothes since Saturday.
I’m not writing any more just now. When I read all you letters “I just fell to pieces”. Your concern, compassion and caring came through in big capital letters all over the computer. Thanks, I know you were praying for me and in a few days I will write and tell you how I know. Each of you went to God on my behalf and he heard your plea and to him we give the praise that I am with any pain. I have not even had to take a pain pill. That in itself is a miracle.
I’ll write more later. Have meals and nurses coming. All is well.
Love Jodean.
1/6/99
Dear ones:
Esther came for me and we went by the senior meal site and picked up the lunch. They will deliver from now on.
They didn’t tell me anything about the tests on the tissue they removed. I have to go to his office on Thursday at 3:00 and he will discuss them with me. He has to find out what kind of cancer it was and then they will know how to doctor it. All that will come on Thursday.
I had about forty emails when I got home from the hospital and most were from you all that I write to regularly.
I am feeling very good today. Neighbor brought me stew for supper and two of my Sunday school class brought me a plate from the pot luck dinner at church. This was domino playing day and on the first Tuesday they all bring a dish and have potluck.
I didn’t even get to taste it because I had the stew. Will get to it tomorrow.
A neighbor brought her gown last night and came by and said she was going to stay all night with me. I hadn’t even considered having company but did appreciate her thoughtfulness.
I think I’ll stay by myself tonight. I don’t mind and I can sleep as long as I want to if I am by myself.
Have begun doing the exercises. They don't hurt. I can get my arms up over my head, can hardly straighten out my arms.
The tube that is in is still draining; it gets less every day. I’m supposed to keep a tally on it each day.
I’m kinda tired today. Just natural I guess, no pain or sickness, just laid around until I’ve lost some of my strength. Everything seems to be very good. I’m certainly not complaining. Doing nothing but watching TV and eating.
Sure would like to have a big fire in the fireplace on these cold nights.
Thanks to everyone for your love and concern.
Love Jodean
1/7/99
Dear Kids
I am getting much better every day. Have Nurses coming. Had a real bath today and felt like a new woman it was so wonderful. They didn’t want the wound to get wet and so I had to just wash with a rag. Nurse came today and we had a real down in the tub bath.
That may not be so wonderful to anyone else but me but I was really getting crusty.
My arm is very limber. I can already use it over my head with out any pain. It has never been much of a problem. I am taking exercises to loosen the muscles that have been cut.
I go back to the doctor tomorrow and will know what comes next. I’m
Esther will take me back to the doctor tomorrow. Orvis Doyle came to see me today. Wanda Doyle, Uncle Ward’s sister, died suddenly last week and he had to be the administrator.
Don he said that they only charged him $25.00 to make a will. I need to do one. What do you suggest? Do we need a lawyer or can it be done without a lawyer? I meant to get some time to talk to you this weekend and never did. Please think about this and see how I need to handle the estate to get into where it won’t be expensive when I am gone. Yes, we are going to talk about it because it has to be.
Love, Mom
1/8/99
Dear Kids and friends:
My Doctor called about 1:00 and cancelled my afternoon appointment because of the weather. A drizzle of freezing rain was settling over our area. The roads and streets were becoming slick and people were falling and having trouble getting into the office. I was glad, as I didn’t want to go out into the cold. Remade it for Monday afternoon at 1:30. Hope for better weather.
Uncle Orvis went to Lawton today for one of those scopes he has to do every six months. They took out a pallop and will test it. His heart did just fine. I have just talked to them.
I’m doing very well. Always a little tired by the time night comes. I’m fixing to put on a warm sweat suit to sleep in tonight. It is bitter cold out. Glad I don’t have to be going anywhere.
Have plenty of food and offers for more. Friends had taken very good care of me. Have had four times as many offers as I could accept. I am grateful for such good neighbors and friends.
I cleaned out my closet today and threw away old shoes and things. I will spend tomorrow cleaning out the other closet. I’m going to trash clothes I don’t need. Believe it or not, it doesn’t bother me to throw that stuff away. I must be loosing my mind.
I got this beautiful story from my friends, Alice and John Boydston, who I worked on the Salt Lake City records with. They sent it to me today. I want to share it with all of you. How could we say it any better?
I have in my hands two boxes
Which God gave me to hold
He said, “Put all your sorrows in the
And all your joys in the gold.”
I heeded his words, and in the two boxes
Both my joys and sorrows I store
But though the gold became heavier each day
The black was as light as before
With curiosity, I opened the black I
And I saw, in the base of the box, a hole
Which my sorrows had fallen out by
I showed the hole to God, and mused aloud,
“I wonder where my sorrows could be.”
He
“My child, they’re
I asked, “God, why give me the boxes,
I asked, “God, why give me the boxes,
“Why the gold, and the black with
“My child, the gold is for you to count your
blessings, the black is for you to let go.”
May your blessings be many,
your sorrows be in God’s hands,
and may you know my thoughts
and prayers are with you.
I have 2 sisters (Kenna and Ricki) and we are all very concerned about the possibility that we could be diagnosed with breast cancer. I can only hope that I could handle it with the grace that mother did.
