After diagnosis of cancer come surgery, chemo, tears

Report from a New Cancer Battlefield

Weddington true to character in cancer fight

Supreme Leadership

I've Graduated, but I'm Still Searching for Osama

On Monday, April 2, 2001, while doing a breast self-exam, I discovered a large mass. Tuesday I was visiting my primary care physician; Wednesday I was going for a diagnostic mammogram; Thursday I was in a surgeon's office for a biopsy; and Friday I received the result: high-grade invasive ductal carcinoma - i.e. cancer.

I wrote a column for our local newspaper as I started a "slow-motion bungee jump" into cancer treatment. It was an especially hard time because my younger sister died of breast cancer. You can read that column here.

I named the tumor Darth Vader after that menace hiding behind a mask in the "Star Wars" movies. I wanted it cut out and dissected in the pathology lab to discover its characteristics and learn how best to fight it.

Later, Dr. Peggy Listrom, the wonderful pathologist at St. David's Hospital where I had surgery, let me look at the slides of my cancer and helped me make pictures. The areas that accepted the purple stain, where the arrow points, are cancer cells under high magnification. I'm making a dart board of the photo and fully plan to throw darts at those cells. Cancer literature often talks about using visualization techniques; I can take visualization of those cells to a new and higher level.

After surgery came chemotherapy, which caused my hair to fall out. Again I turned to writing to deal with that. It's a rough treatment, but now I have my graduation certificate from Texas Oncology Cancer Center certifying that I finished chemotherapy "with the highest degree of courage, determination, and good nature."

Now I'm in the midst of radiation treatments. For 28 sessions the involved breast and associated lymph nodes have been bombarded with high-speed photon light rays. Now the area where the tumor was located is being bombarded with electron rays. Parts of the area being treated are red and beginning to peel like a sunburn. Other more central parts are turning bronze; I wonder whether those parts of me will look like the woman in advertisements for the movie "Goldfinger."

The Associated Press did a story about my causes, including that of breast cancer.

As cancer treatment continues, I'm writing a final column called "Searching for Osama." As our U.S. military warriors are searching for Osama Bin Laden, my cancer warriors are searching for any cancer cells that remain and are waiting to disrupt my future. The U.S. has other countries as allies; mine are doctors, nurses, members of my breast cancer support group, and helpful friends. There has been a high-tech "game" going on inside me to search for and disable cancer cells. Those cells might be hiding in the caves and tunnels of my body. We are no longer "bombing" with chemotherapy drugs, but we remain on alert watching for new targets. I will soon be finished with this round of treatment, but I will never be finished with cancer. As nations support the rebuilding of Afghanistan, I must rebuild my immunity system, my body's defense mechanism. The President says the conflict with terrorism is ongoing, and so is my conflict with cancer.

My attention now turns to supporting groups that assist those with breast cancer. I will be the honorary chairperson and one of the speakers for the benefit for the Austin Breast Cancer Resource Center on October 6, 2002. I'm the honorary head of the San Francisco Bar Association project to connect women lawyers who've been through cancer to those who are discovering it in order to encourage peer counseling. There will be other things to do as time passes. But for now, my goal is to get a graduation certificate from radiation treatment and to do whatever is necessary to remain cancer free.