Cancer was not a disease our family got.  Mom's side of the family dies of old age.  Dad's side has heart attacks or strokes, but they still live long lives.  Dad's Aunt Nellie had breast cancer, but she lived far away and it was hardly mentioned.  The family history changed when Dad's youngest sister got breast cancer and died at 48.  Another sister developed leukemia in her 60's and a third got breast cancer in her 80's.  Dad developed cancerous polyps and had a section of his colon removed.  Okay... cancer was now a disease the older relatives got, but it still didn't happen to us.  We were growing up on a farm with fresh air, eating healthy and popping vitamins.  Invincible!

It was quite a shock when my oldest sister, Barbara, went to the doctor to see about a persistent cough, and was given the diagnosis of stage IV ovarian cancer.  Five years later, the next oldest, Bonnie found a lump in her breast.  You reason that lightening cannot possibly strike a family again, but it did.  The youngest, Brenna, was also diagnosed with breast cancer.  Barbara died in 1985 at age 48, Brenna in 1986 at age 34 and Bonnie in 1988 at age 46.  Our family was devastated and I became an only (remaining) child in the span of 3 years and 13 days. 

You have to keep on living and get past the fear of "am I next"?  It wasn't easy, but I had a family to raise and aging parents to care for.  God gave me peace and strength to keep going for my two young daughters and my grieving parents. 

A small article appeared in our local paper in 1993 about the NSABP Breast Cancer Prevention Trial.  I called the coordinator at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and was accepted into the trial.  16,000 women at high risk for breast cancer were recruited for the study.  I took Tamoxifen for 5 years on the program.  How did I know I was taking Tamoxifen and not the placebo? HOT FLASHES!  Not fun side affects, but I hoped the benefits outweighed the negatives.  It gave me a sense of security in that I was being proactive and doing what I could to protect myself from developing breast cancer while furthering cancer research.

I finished the Tamoxifen trial and thought "Great! Now the hot flashes will quit!"  NOT!  I needed a hysterectomy for horrible fibrosis.  It was logical to remove my ovaries at the same time.  So the instant menopause gave me hot flashes to heat the world!  Hormones were not an option, herbs did nothing for me... I  learned to live with them.  Clonidine helps, but I'm still a "hot chick" quite a few times a day.

I'm a 58 year old baby boomer so this summer was my 40th (yikes!) High School Class Reunion.  There were 45 in my graduating class.  29 of us went through all 12 grades together so we were like brothers and sisters.  Two girls in my class passed away from cancer in their 30's & 40's.  One of those also had a sister with cancer.  Another classmate is a breast cancer survivor for 9 years.  One of the boys is undergoing a second round of stem cell treatments.  Cancer has touched a high proportion of families in the small farming community where I grew up.  We are "Down-Winders" from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.  In the late 40's and early 50's there were "green releases" of radioactive iodine.  The invisible iodine settled into the soil where we grew our own vegetables and drank the milk from the cows who ate tainted grass.  Is it just a coincidence that all three sisters  developed cancer at early ages and died within 3 years of each other?  Is it just a coincidence that cancer rates are so high in the Lincoln County area?