The Good Fight

Local women share their stories about spending the year battling breast cancer

Editor's note: One year ago, Jan DeBeaumont walked into my office with a story to tell.

She was still healing from a double mastectomy, but was adamant about getting her story out.

As the months progressed, she remained willing and open to share her experience with breast cancer, letting me accompany her to a chemotherapy session, a physical therapy appointment and meeting me even when her energy levels were incredibly low and her hair was beginning to fall out.

Her willingness to share her story and suggest other women who might be willing to share theirs led me to Bonnie Eagar and Kim Loera, two other brave women who held nothing back as they talked about their own experiences with breast cancer in a story printed in the Columbia Basin Herald less than one year ago.

Today, Jan and Bonnie open their lives to us again. Each has been battling breast cancer for a little more than a year.

(Happily, Kim had no new progress to report about her experience with the disease. After fighting against it three separate times, she remains cancer free today.)

Jan DeBeaumont is a new woman.

A little more than one year ago, a mammogram revealed there were masses the size of dimes in each of her breasts. When the results of a biopsy proved she had breast cancer, Jan underwent a bilateral mastectomy and had a total of 16 lymph nodes removed.

And that was just the start of her battle.

She spent the better part of the past year recovering from the dramatic surgery and many rounds of chemotherapy. There were also physical therapy appointments and harsh side effects to contend with. From losing her hair to ending up in the emergency room to receive shots of Demerol because the bone pain caused by chemotherapy was so severe, Jan has seen breast cancer from all sides. It has been hard and it has been enlightening, and a year later Jan appears to have triumphed over a disease estimated to kill 40,110 women and 470 men in the United States this year.

Today, Jan, now 54, has become the executive director of the Moses Lake Cancer Foundation, her body is healing and she says there was a purpose behind her breast cancer.

Finding meaning

"Who knows why they have to go through what they go through?" Jan asks. "But in the end, it's going to make you a stronger person."

Jan encompasses her own opinion on the matter; there is a strength about her that shows in the smallest of gestures, in her gaze that has grown more commanding in the past year.

"I knew there was a purpose," Jan says, and you can tell she's considered and refined exactly what that is. "My purpose for having cancer was changing things in my life, not taking people and things for granted, to live a healthier lifestyle, to appreciate what's going on around me, to find a better understanding of God."

"I'm almost happier now because of knowing what I know and the insights that I have," says Bonnie Eagar, who was diagnosed with breast cancer only a few months before Jan. She, too, had a bilateral mastectomy last year.

She is quick to point out the positive aspects of her experience with breast cancer. Over and over again, she repeats the phrase, "that's another blessing of cancer."

Bonnie's formed closer relationships with her family, and with God, because of the disease. "I think it's made me look at life and distill out what's really important," she says.

"I can sit and tell you all kinds of wonderful things that can happen because of cancer."

A year of treatment

Jan was scheduled to undergo a total of eight rounds of chemotherapy, but stopped short at six. She began with four intensive rounds of chemo which Jan calls the "heavy hitters," then began having injections of Taxol which can cause nerve damage and bone pain.

"It was just extreme," Jan described. The pain Jan experienced in her bones was so severe she needed Demerol, a strong narcotic analgesic, to control it. It took two more rounds of the powerful drug to get her through that first round of Taxol. By her second round of Taxol, she needed a combination of morphine and Demerol to manage her bone pain.

Her doctor agreed to discontinue the next two planned Taxol doses.

Jan is now continuing to have numerous follow up treatments, and will be taking Tamoxifen, an anti-oestrogen drug widely used to treat breast cancer, for the next five years.

While Jan has fought her cancer with full-blown chemotherapy treatments over the past year, Bonnie's battle has been less outwardly dramatic. She hasn't lost her hair and she compares controlling her cancer to how a diabetes patient regulates their chronic condition. There is no cure for her type of estrogen receptor positive lobular carcinoma.

Bonnie controls her cancer with hormone therapy treatment, which provides a low dose of chemotherapy. She's been receiving those treatments through a nail-sized needle which inserts a large pill into her abdomen on a monthly basis, and also has infusions in her arms. Today Bonnie will undergo an operation to install a Hickman portacatheter in her chest to make to make receiving treatment easier.

"They were having trouble getting veins," Bonnie says. "It was stressful."

And though the port will provide a less painful entryway for medications and blood draws, for Bonnie, it's also an acknowledgement of her disease.

"Maybe that's admitting that I'm giving into the cancer a little bit," she says. "I thought about that — do I want a reminder? I sometimes think that my disease is not as advanced as it is."

"Cancer brain" and other effects

Jan's chemotherapy treatments jump-started menopause for her and also caused short-term memory loss. She says it can be difficult to put a name to familiar faces and she's found herself making appointments and forgetting to show up.

Lymphedema is another common side effect for many breast cancer patients, and Jan is one of them. Because Jan had so many lymph nodes removed, it can be challenging for her body to circulate fluids and her arms have tendency to swell.

"It'll be an ongoing problem," Jan says. She is able to control the swelling through compression sleeves and ongoing physical therapy.

Bonnie calls this kind of short-term memory loss "cancer-brain," but she also blames it on getting older. She's had similar experiences to those Jan describes and finds appointments and names hard to remember, especially recalling names when a person is out of the environment she knows them in.

One of the most brutal effects of Bonnie's treatment has been the result of her severe reaction to anesthesia, and the domino-effects it caused after her last surgery. "If there was a speed bump, I hit it," Bonnie says of the slow healing process following her double mastectomy. She had the surgery in May of 2004 and spent the next two months recovering from complications stemming from the anesthesia.

"That was really a tough battle," she says.

Though the procedure she'll undergo to have a port installed is only expected to take 20 to 30 minutes and a lighter anesthesia will be used, any kind of surgery is cause enough for Bonnie and her family to worry that it could result in similar complications.

"They're nervous because of what happened as a result of my last surgery. Anesthesia and I are not good friends," Bonnie says.

Working women

When board members of the Moses Lake Cancer Foundation asked Jan to apply for her position, she said she was completely unfamiliar with the organization. Now, she is one of its greatest advocates.

The foundation's purpose is to provide support, and that ranges from the informational brochures available in Jan's office in downtown Moses Lake to a bus service which transports cancer patients to Wenatchee to receive treatment there.

Jan's work at the foundation includes working to build a Web site, moseslakecancerfoundation.org; fund-raising efforts, including a proposed charity event this winter; and shaping her office into a comfortable place where people feel they can just drop in.

"I want my office to be a place where people can come any time of the day that I'm there and just talk," she said.

But Jan sees her most important task as providing cancer patients the opportunity to speak with someone who's been through the experience of cancer.

"That was just so important," Jan said of her own need to have such an outlet. "These wonderful people should not be alone."

Though Jan's new career keeps her thinking about cancer, she says it actually stops her from dwelling on her own struggles with the disease.

"It puts the focus on other people," she says. "I'm not dwelling, that doesn't enter my mind.

"It is a very healing experience."

As the executive director of the foundation, Jan has been asked to speak at several public engagements. She was recently the featured speaker at the annual Stampin' Out Breast Cancer event held in Moses Lake. "It's opened up a whole new journey for me," Jan said of her new position with the foundation.

"I love my job," Bonnie says of her position as business community liaison and work-based learning coordinator at Columbia Basin Job Corps. "I love the kids and I love to connect with them."

And that's why she took two months to consider whether or not she should cut back on her hours. "I fought that until I couldn't do it anymore," she said of working full time.

"That was a really tough decision."

Bonnie now works about 20 hours a week. The fatigue caused by her treatments makes it difficult to work a 40-hour work week, though Bonnie still finds it hard to keep her hours limited. "It's hard to know when to cut back if you're doing good stuff."

"I'm a lousy cutter-backer," she admits with a grin. "I like to go at top speed. It's full on or nothing."

Being able to share her story is also important to Bonnie, who has been asked to speak at events like the kickoff of Ephrata's Relay for Life.

"I love to talk about the cancer because as a society we need to talk about it," she says. Bonnie feels she can serve as a role model as she is living with stage four cancer, and inspire others to have hope.

"It throws people," she said. "I don't look like a typical cancer patient."

A lasting concern

"I've got about two good weeks per month," Bonnie says. She describes the week or so prior to receiving her treatment as nerve wracking. As she is also tested then to see how her cancer is progressing, Bonnie spends the following week anxiously awaiting results. For the past year, positive test results have made for two weeks of repose.

That changed recently.

"My tumor markers have been going down for about one and a half years, but they're starting to go up, and we don't know why," Bonnie says.

"It was like a kick in the stomach," Bonnie says of hearing the news.

At her next appointment in Seattle, Bonnie's doctor will decide if she needs a new kind of hormone-based therapy or full-fledged chemo.

For Bonnie, there will never be an end to her treatments, just variations.

She admits to coveting the end dates other breast cancer patients can anticipate. "Mine will never be done."

Jan will continue to have chest X-rays to watch for a return of cancer on her chest wall. She will also have her ovaries removed, as it's common for women with breast cancer to eventually develop ovarian cancer.

"I do not dwell on the fact that it may come back," Jan says. "If it comes back, I'll do exactly what I need to do again. I'm not afraid of it coming back."

Reconstructing what was lost

The possibility of having reconstruction surgery is an issue Jan continues to debate. She goes back and forth between wondering if it's a vain endeavor to thinking she just might have it done.

"Right now, I'm happy to live my life without it," Jan says.

At home, she's secure with her breastless figure, but in public she wears protheses. "I'd just as soon not have them on," she says of the artificial breasts, which she describes as both uncomfortable and unnatural.

Bonnie is resolute about her decision not to have reconstruction surgery.

"It's a non-issue," Bonnie says, "and it's a non-issue with my husband."

"I'm really happy with me just the way I am. I love my steamlined shape, it's comfortable. It's who I am right now."

Life changes

Cancer has affected Jan's life in both small and immeasurable ways. Her hair, always straight, has grown back in curly, but as Jan says, "It feels good to have any hair!"

On a grander scale, "I don't forget to say 'I love you,'" Jan says.

She adds that the experience has brought her family closer and taught her children valuable lessons.

"I think it's going to make them more understanding adults," she says.

She credits her family as well as her friends and the staff of the oncology department of the Moses Lake Clinic with helping her through her experience with breast cancer. "That's just sustained me," she says.

Bonnie's experience with cancer has motivated her to start some new family traditions. Every Sunday night, she and her husband of 29 years, Dale, talk with each of their four grown children.

"It's important that we just stay so close," Bonnie says, leaning in, her eyes revealing how very important that statement is to her. "I want to make sure that when I die, my family will be so used to being close that they'll always want to stay that way."

Faith has been an important part of Bonnie's life since long before she developed cancer. But having breast cancer has also changed that facet of her life.

"I really see the hand of the Lord in the miracles in my life," Bonnie says. "(Faith) strengthens you in ways that probably you never could have, or would have."

Bonnie, too, calls the support she's received from her family a source of strength for her. But she's also thankful for the many community members who show their concern. "I have people stop me all the time and say 'How are you doing? I'm praying for you.'"

Living better

Jan is now attending Jazzercise Light classes, which can still feel strenuous at this point in her recovery process.

"It's not easy to go to Jazzercise, even the light one. Sometimes my arms are so swollen and I can't hold the weights," she describes.

Despite the difficulty, Jan is striving to attend the class once a week, unless her lymphedema keeps her from doing so. She's monitoring what she eats, and managing her stress levels more closely.

"If I'm going to fight this thing, then I've got to do everything I can to keep it from coming back," she says.

"You want to do everything you can to live as long as you can with your family. I'm not ready to go."

It's been a year and a half since Bonnie was diagnosed with an incurable form of breast cancer. In that time, she's redefined many aspects of her life.

"I think I was kind of a workaholic before," says Bonnie, who describes herself as having a Type A personality. "I wouldn't want to go back to being so driven that I miss out on life."

She's also ecstatic about turning 50 on Nov. 1. For a lot of women, that milestone calls for black balloons and a lot of jokes about being "over the hill."

Bonnie's attitude is very different. "I've lived another year!" she says with glee.

And though she has this uncommon perspective, Bonnie says she's also come to realize she's not so different from everyone else.

"Nobody knows how long they'll live," she says. "I've got to live today."