Intro: Welcome to Conversations on Cancer, brought to you by the Riverside Cancer Institute, providing answers, debunking myths, and sharing patient stories.

Dr. Ahsan Basha (Host): Hello, this is Dr. Ahsan Basha. welcome to our monthly podcast, The C Word: Community, Not Cancer. Today, we have a guest, Diane, who has actually just finished her cancer treatment. And so, we're happy to meet you at the end of this. Welcome.

Diane: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Host: So, Diane, this is actually a little bit unusual when people—I mean, I've seen people who have just finished, so it's kind of a different way of seeing things. So, I'll be excited to see, what's been happening to you in this short period of time. So from what I gathered in the chart, Diane is a patient of Dr. Lasher and Dr. Rashed, who's our radiation oncologist, and Dr. Lasher is our medical-oncologist. But this all started in October with A screening mammogram, correct?

Diane: Correct.

Host: Tell me what happened.

Diane: I had the screening mammogram on October the 4th, and they did see a spot that they thought they'd want to try again to see it better, so they did an ultrasound. After the ultrasound, they decided they wanted to do a biopsy, because it did look suspicious. And so, they did the biopsy the following week, and that's when I saw the results on myChart that there was cancer there.

Host: So now, was that the first time you saw that you had cancer, through myChart?

Diane: Yes.

Host: Okay. How did that impact you?

Diane: It wasn't surprising. I don't have a lot of cancer in my family, but I was a little bit shocked, but I'm glad that they caught it early. I was almost not going to do the mammogram just because I'm older and almost 70. So, I thought that maybe I would just not do that for a while, because all mine have been negative since I've been young. But I'm glad that I went ahead and did it. There must've been something in my little conscious that said, "No, let's do it one more time and see what happens with it."

Host: Yeah. So after you saw the results in myChart. And, you know, I'll be honest, I haven't seen this too often. So, obviously, a doctor hadn't called you, you just saw this on myChart.

Diane: Right. Right.

Host: When did you talk with a doctor after that?

Diane: It was probably two or three days later. And Dr. Hussaini called me. And I said, "Yes, I did see the results." And we'll just go from there and see what we need to do, and what we need to go next and go from there.

Host: Okay. In those three days, what were you experiencing?

Diane: I was a little bit shocked at first. But I wasn't overwhelmed with, "Oh my goodness, this is cancer." It was small that I didn't worry too much about it. I did think at first, "Well, there's nobody in my family that has it." Although my brother, when I thought about it, has had prostate cancer and had have that removed. But otherwise, nobody in my family ever had cancer. But at the same time, I'm thinking, "Who am I that I could bypass this disease any more than anybody else can?"

Host: Sure. Sounds like, well, you did take it well, obviously.

Diane: Yes. Yeah.

Host: You panicking or like that. That's great. A lot of people when they hear the word cancer, they do panic.

Diane: Yes.

Host: What gives you that little strength or or that peace?

Diane: Through our life, our married life, we've had some kind of a tragedy of some sort it seemed like and a lot of different things that have happened. My parents were older, so they died when I was younger. So, I've always had a belief in God. And he always helped us through these difficult situations that he would help me through this as well.

Host: Good. I'm glad you had that peace in that time. So as far as I'm looking through your records is then the next step was meeting with Dr. Lasher, right?

Diane: Yes.

Host: So as Dr. Lasher got to explain to you about the cancer and your diagnosis and what was ahead of you, how did you you experience that?

Diane: I knew we had a plan. And that was a good thing for me. I just needed to have a plan. What do I do next? How can we get rid of this thing, this cancer? And it really helped talking with her. Now, she used to go to my church. So, I knew her personally as Casey. So, I could talk to her about it, Casey. And so, it was really nice to see her and to talk with her, and she was very thorough about everything. That was the one thing that really impressed me, is that she was thorough about the type of cancer and what to expect and what we can do for treatment, how long to take the treatment and so forth. And that really kept me at ease, I think, knowing that I had a challenge ahead, but I knew the plan.

Host: Yeah. It does help to know, right?

Diane: Yes.

Host: So for our listeners, i'm just going to briefly summarize that when Dr. Lasher saw Diane, she had a type of breast cancer, the most common type in some ways, invasive ductal carcinoma. But she had something called triple-negative breast cancer. And what triple-negative means is that the cancer didn't express any proteins that make the cancer sensitive to hormones like estrogen or, for our purposes, anti-estrogen therapy. And it was negative for progesterone as well, receptors. And then, finally, there's another protein called HER2/neu, which can make cancers a little bit more aggressive, but also on a therapeutic point, can offer us a target to attack the cancer. So, this triple-negative breast cancer is a little bit less common. But because of it, Dr. Lasher decided to suggest what's called neoadjuvant chemotherapy, meaning she offered you chemotherapy to do for several rounds before surgery. So, take me through how you managed the chemotherapy.

Diane: The chemotherapy, during chemotherapy was not bad. I did not get sick, I didn't get dizzy or anything like that. It was days after I had the treatment that I would get to the point where I slept all the time, couldn't eat, couldn't drink for at least a couple of days. I could feel it coming on. And it took two or three days for it to really subside before I could get back to eating something again and getting the nutrition that I needed or the protein that I needed to get my body back to good. So, that was a little bit of a challenge, and that was probably worse in a sense, than getting the diagnosis.

Host: Yeah.

Diane: Yeah, for me.

Host: Looking at you, I'm assuming you're a person who normally does everything that you can and is very active. Just looking at is, is that true? Yeah. So when you were so tired and fatigued and not able to do as much, you said it was rough. Was that depressing, or was that—

Diane: A bit. But it was just that I just couldn't stay awake and didn't have the energy to do too much of anything. And so, John was very helpful in doing a lot of things that we needed, normally do for our daughter whenever she needs assistance. I just didn't have the energy to get up and do it. And so, he was very good on helping with that and getting me all to my appointments and staying with me and supporting me and stuff. So, that helped.

Host: Well, that's great that you had that support. So after the neoadjuvant chemotherapy, you did go on to meet with Dr. Lang, the surgeon, who performed your surgery.

Diane: Yes.

Host: At the time of surgery, there was still some residual cancer left in the breast. So, that was removed. And then, afterwards, Dr. Rashed took over, who's our radiation oncologist. And now, you've just completed radiation. How did that go?

Diane: That went pretty well. Yeah. I wasn't sure what to expect. I've never had that before. But the girls there that work were very informative, so that helped me feel at ease. They were joking. So, that helped me ease a little bit. And so, we kind of have become a family in a sort. But the treatment itself was not bad. I did not have a lot of pain. Quite a bit of redness, but outside of that, I really didn't have too much of a side effect. I did wake up one night and had a couple of bouts of nausea, and I'm probably thinking it was from that. But otherwise, I didn't have any problem at all.

Host: Good. I believe you finished just one week ago today, correct?

Diane: Yes, I did. Yes, I did.

Host: Did you ring the bell?

Diane: Yes, I did. Yeah.

Host: How was that feeling?

Diane: That was a good feeling. That was a good feeling to do that. Now, it's done. I've done it twice, we're not going to do that again.

Host: I agree. I agree. That's the goal.

Diane: Yeah.

Host: And so, now, you move into a phase where basically your medical team, Dr. Lasher, Dr. Rashed will keep an eye on you, going to be the main thing. So, you touched on things briefly here and there. You mentioned the support you got from your husband during that time you were really fatigued with the chemotherapy, as well as turning to him when you got the diagnosis. You said that, you know, providing support. Tell me a little bit about your support system.

Diane: I have three siblings. They all live down in Watseka, so they aren't real close by, but they text me, the boys text me. And then, my sister will call. And that helped out. But the best that I have is my church. There's 350-plus family members that I consider my brothers and sisters. And I had so many people come up to me, "Well, if you need somebody to help you go to your treatments, give me a call."

I did have to have one of my best friends that brought me over once or twice, for any kind of testing that I needed to have. She had a husband that had cancer that had passed away seven or eight years ago, so she kind of knew what to expect. And she was a very good backup person for me and somebody that I could bounce ideas and things off of on her. But everybody would come up before church and say, "Hey, we're praying for you." And it's people I didn't expect, you know? So, that was nice. That was very nice.

And I always tried to keep my pastor up because my pastor and his wife, they always wanted to know what was going on, and how things were going. So, It's the best because, yeah, most of my family is gone, like I said, but no aunts, uncles, moms, dad. But having that family, that church family, has really meant a lot to me.

Host: So, your community's actually expanded with this diagnosis in someways.

Diane: Yes.

Host: Like, people you weren't really expecting kind of helped you out in terms of that.

Diane: Yes.

Host: Okay. Tell me a little bit about about your husband.

Diane: John has retired from the Kankakee County Sheriff's Department since 2010, so been retired for quite a few years. He is very go-getter. He helped take care of his mom and his sister. And so, he keeps pretty busy doing stuff. And he's always stuck around carefully knowing that I didn't have energy to do stuff, to fix supper, or get whatever Courtney needed. He was very right on Johnny-on-the-spot to help. So, he's been a very good backbone, and hugs when I needed them, because that is the most important thing.

Host: Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure it is. And appropriately named then Johnny on the Spot.

Diane: Yep. Yep.

Host: Very good. you also commented a few times, I noticed, when you talked about family, when you talked about the people who worked here.

Diane: Oh, yes. The girls in the chemo area were just wonderful. I had Nicole to start with, and she was just great. Others come in, like Olivia, and just a bubble of energy and smiles and everything. And it just makes the whole process a lot easier. And I learned to joke with them and tease them a little bit about stuff. So, every time they asked me, "Well, what's your name and birthday?" I said, "I've been here for three times. You know what my name and birthday is." But they had to go by the protocol. But I just kind of joked around with them, and they just really had made things really nice.

Now, the radiation girls was the same. It was easy to joke with them, tease them a little bit about stuff, and we just had a good time. And they said, well, my treatments were only five minutes long. So, she said, because I was so jolly all the time, I guess they said, that they weren't sure to put me in the front of the day or at the end of the day. So when they went to go home, they had a happy spirit to go with, which made me feel good. But it made things a lot easier for me. I knew what they were going to be doing. They told me every step of the way what they needed to do and how I would or should feel and what lotions to use. And it really helped out a lot.

Host: Good. I'm glad you found that support, glad found that family from different parts of your life now.

Diane: Yes.

Host: If you were to meet someone who was just getting a diagnosis of breast cancer today, what kind of advice would you give to them?

Diane: Make sure that you have a good support system, whether it's family, church, or places that you work, if you're really close to friends, whatever. And make sure that you have a good support base that really makes a big difference outside of if they don't have a relationship with God, then that would be the probably the ultimate to get you through anything, is that relationship with Him, because He gets you through anything and everything, and He never leaves you, never forsakes you. So, He's going to get you through everything.

Host: Any other words before we finish as to anything you want to say to anyone, or any other thoughts you had to share with us?

Diane: It's just been so wonderful here. And I really felt sad that I had to leave the girls after chemo and not see them anymore, or even the radiation ladies. And the people at the desk were always so helpful. The girls that drew the blood were so good and so helpful, and got it immediately, so they had no problems or issues with that. And the way that the Cancer Society has been able to get the medicines to be specific- Mm-hmm ... or even the radiation to be specific for whatever they need to do, I think they've made great strides in what they need to do in order to eradicate this disease.

Host: Right. And so, I do want to thank you for joining us today. And also you've mentioned that feeling like you're leaving them. Obviously, now you're kind of going to be connected with us for quite a while.

Diane: Yeah.

Host: And between Dr. Lasher and Dr. Rashed, you're going to be under what we call surveillance, which means just keeping an eye on you closely, as far as making sure that cancer doesn't come back. And so yeah, you'll get to see a lot of people over time.

Diane: That's good. That's good. Yeah. That makes me feel better.

Host: Good. Good. Well, thank you again, Diane.

Diane: Thank you.

Host: I really appreciate you sharing your story with us, and the strategies you have and everything that helped you get through this. So, thank you everyone for listening to The C Word: Community, Not Cancer. And we look forward to seeing you again.