FIRST DAUGHTER, THEN MOM
Once the shock of learning she had breast cancer wore off, Susan Lane remembers feeling relieved. The Stage 1 in situ tumor discovered in 2002 was readily treatable and caught early. She underwent a lumpectomy and radiation and closed that scary chapter of her life. Or so she thought.
Four years later, an MRI showing a cloudy area where the tumor had been removed started a whole new chapter in her breast cancer saga that was considerably more complicated that the first. It began with the difficult decision to undergo a mastectomy in a seven-hour procedure that also included breast reconstruction. That was followed by a nipple reconstruction and a cascade of complications that included being hospitalized for an infection, removal of her implant, a second reconstruction surgery and a trip back to the hospital for an appendectomy.
“Now I’m fine,” Lane says insistently. “Since then I’ve been fine.”
The Avon resident was 34 when first diagnosed, working full time and raising her daughter. Independent by nature, she relied on her faith and a close-knit group of friends to get her through the experience. Her mom, Maxine Lane, pitched in by making meals during her treatment and looking after Susan’s daughter Ashleigh. Little did
Maxine know at the time that 17 years later she too would be diagnosed with breast cancer.
Susan, now 51, was floored when her mom shared the news in January. Her first thought, she says, was “Let me have it again, not my mother.”
Maxine, 79, was shaken at first but then took a wait-and-see approach.
“If I have chemo, I’ll go gray,” she thought. “I took it a step at a time.”
Unlike Susan’s experience, Maxine’s has been “almost stress-free,” she says. During a routine mammogram last fall, doctors found two suspicious looking spots in her left breast that turned out to be cancerous. She had a mastectomy in April and since then, “it’s been like nothing ever happened.”
A close friend who is a breast cancer survivor accompanied Maxine to doctors’ appointments, jotting details of her conversations with the doctor in case Maxine forgot. After the surgery, when asked about her level of pain, Maxine told the nurse “zero.”
“They told me to fill the prescription for my pain medication, but I didn’t need to,” says Maxine, who also lives in Avon. “Even my husband thought I would be more down. He thought I wouldn’t feel well, but I felt fine. My first morning home from the hospital he got up early to make coffee, but I was already up. That’s how good I felt.”
“My dad and I were more of a wreck than she was,” adds Susan.
Then she chuckles remembering a comment her mom made as she was waking up from the anesthesia.
“She told the nurse, ‘you have the most beautiful face,’” she says. “It was funny and it was a blessing.”
Both mother and daughter are back to living life fully and eager to tell their stories if it helps others navigate the challenges of breast cancer. Maxine didn’t need chemo or radiation but will be taking an estrogensuppressing drug for five years.
She opted not to have reconstruction and raves about the shop she found in Vernon run by the daughter of a cancer survivor where she was fitted for her prosthetic bras. She’s getting physical therapy and taking a strength training class for cancer patients that Susan told her about.
Susan started her own health and wellness company five months ago.
Before cancer, Susan says she was all about vanity and appearance. Now, not so much.
“I discovered I’m so much more than my physical appearance, and the value and importance of relationship,” she says.
Maxine cringes remembering how she dragged her feet about getting a mammogram.
“I kept putting it off,” she says. “I was busy taking care of my great-granddaughter, and I thought it was a waste of time. But it wasn’t a waste of time, so I tell everybody, don’t put it off.”