WHAT’S WRONG WITH MOMMY?What Factors Influence How Breast Cancer is Treated?

By Rachel Polizzano and Erin Hoyt

• The Wilson’s were a cute little family of four. There was Judy, the mom, Hank, the dad, Lucas, the son, and Katie, the daughter.

• One day, Judy and Hank sat down their kids and said they had something serious to tell them. Their sad faces worried Lucas and Katie.

• “Kids, your mom is sick. We just found out she has breast cancer.” Hank said with a frown.

• “What’s breast cancer??” Lucas asked.

• “Breast cancer is a tumor, or a lump, that starts in the breast and can spread to other parts of the body. This is a disease mostly women get.” Judy explained, putting her arm around Lucas. “But don’t worry honey, there are different stages of breast cancer and the doctors caught this pretty early.”

• “She’s has Stage 2A breast cancer which means the tumor is small, less than 2 centimeters, and hasn’t really spread yet.” Hank added in as Katie crawled in his lap.

• “Well what can we do to get rid of it?” Lucas questioned, still worried.

• “There are different treatment options we’re looking into. A few are radiation, chemotherapy, and mastectomy. Let me explain what those are to you Luke.” Hank said.

Chemotherapy

• “Chemotherapy is the use of cancer-killing drugs. These drugs can be put into a vein, given as a shot, or taken as a pill or liquid. Doctors give chemotherapy in cycles, with each round of treatment followed by a resting period. You might get chemotherapy to shrink a cancer before surgery or radiation, or after to stop it from coming back.”

Radiation• “Radiation therapy is using high-energy rays (like X-rays)

to shrink tumors and get rid of cancer cells. The radiation might be delivered by a machine outside the body or it may come from radioactive material placed in the body near cancer cells. Radiation therapy kills cancer cells by damaging their DNA.”

Mastectomy

• “A mastectomy is a surgery to remove all breast tissue from the breast. A doctor would recommend a person to get one if the tumor is larger than 5 centimeters.” Judy added.

• “But there are three options and they all seem good! They all get rid of the cancer! How do you choose one and not the others?” Lucas asked and Katie nodded.

• “Good question honey. You’re so smart.” Judy said with a smile. “There are things called side effects which are bad things that might happen after the different treatments.”

• “Some side effects to chemotherapy are hair loss, easy bruising or bleeding, abdominal pain, appetite changes, and a higher risk of infection.

• “Short term effects for radiation include skin irritation or damage at regions exposed to the radiation beams, fatigue, and nausea. Later side effects are memory loss, infertility, and damage to the bowels.”

• “Aside from pain after the surgery and the change in the shape of the breast, the possible side effects of mastectomy include wound infection, build-up of blood in the wound, and build-up of clear fluid.

• “But Lucas, just know that these bad things might not happen and they aren’t as important as what the treatment will do for me, which is get me all better. It’ll be okay” Judy said, sniffling.

• “Judy, what are the social and ethical choices that you have to consider before choosing treatments?” Hank asked. “We never talked about that before.”

• “Well there’s a lot of talk now about radiation therapy. It’s shown to actually cause other cancers when trying to get rid of breast cancer. I don’t want to go through radiation with the risk of something like that happening. It’s not right.”

• “I also don’t want to go through surgery. My tumor is less than 2 centimeters so it’s not necessary and if it grows or gets worse, then I’ll consider the option. I know there are people getting mastectomies to prevent breast cancer from spreading or even occurring but I don’t want to remove my breasts if I don’t have to. I give women a lot of respect for going through that though, it’s a brave act.”

• “I think I want to go through chemotherapy. I’m aware of the side effects but I think it’ll be my best bet to shrinking and getting rid of the cancer. I don’t care about losing my hair, I care about getting better. Also most breast cancer patients choose chemotherapy as their option. I want to think of my family, and this seems like the best choice.”

• After this talk the Wilson’s had, there were a couple hard weeks full of chemotherapy, tears, and hugs. But, Judy chose the right treatment for her! The chemo killed all the cancer in her body and she was back to her normal life.

THE END