Local senior walks for cancer research

By Sam Harvey
Coastal Point Expatriate

	Coastal Point • SAM HARVEY Susanne McCormick is preparing for a fundraising walk near Philadelphia next month.

McCormick, petite and soft-spoken — but stern-eyed — sexagenarian, intends to walk the whole 20 miles a day, 60 miles in total, over the course of the three-day event.

She’ll have support from her daughter, Beth, who walked last year to honor her mother’s 11th year of living cancer-free. Mother and daughter will walk side by side this year, and at the end of the day, make camp alongside thousands of fellow walkers and crew members.

Some participants do retire to hotel rooms at the end of the day, McCormick pointed out — but she was looking forward to the full experience, tent stakes and all. “It’ll be like Girl Scouts,” she said with a smile.

As a survivor, McCormick will be walking to share in the effort to find a cure so her daughters and others may remain cancer-free. However, she and her daughter will also be walking to honor other family members.

She said she’s lost four aunts to breast cancer. One died in the 1960s. She stalwartly refused medical treatment to the end, McCormick pointed out, as too often was — and perhaps still is — the case when families can’t afford medical care. She stayed at home through her final decline, her sisters by her side, offering what comfort they could with pain medications. Three decades later, when they in turn were diagnosed, all three aunts had mastectomies — partial or total removal of the breast tissue.

Sadly, the surgeries could not save them. McCormick said they’d received their diagnoses too late — the cancer had already spread too far.

Happily, she said, a fifth aunt who’d had breast cancer was doing well following her mastectomy six years ago. And to judge by her willingness to walk 60 miles in three days, McCormick is obviously enjoying a full recovery after her 1994 mastectomy.

The surgery has come a long way, from the days when the only option available to breast cancer patients was the radical mastectomy — removal of the breasts, but also removal of muscle from the chest and under the arms.

Cancer specialists now use radiation, chemotherapy and hormone therapies, alone or in coordination with surgery. And modern medicine now offers less physically and psychologically challenging alternatives, such as modified radical or simple mastectomies, or in some cases lumpectomy (removal of only the small amount of tissue surrounding the cancer). Doctors continue to develop less invasive techniques, which are often proving more effective than the older, radical surgeries.

However, in all cases, early detection is vital. As McCormick pointed out, women should start scheduling annual mammograms (an X-ray of the breast) at age 40 — or younger, if there’s a family history of cancer. Even women in their 20s have been diagnosed with breast cancer.

“Many women are afraid to get them,” she said of mammograms. “But it’s curable — if caught early enough.”

“Getting a mammogram was an annual event for me for 17 years, as were monthly breast self-exams (BSE),” McCormick noted, with her family history. “The results were always normal. That changed 10 months into the 18th year.”

While conducting her monthly self-examination, McCormick discovered what she characterized as a “nodule” on her left breast. She was due for annual mammogram in another two months, but she said she hadn’t wanted to wait even that long.

Then, at the hospital, “When I went in for the X-ray, they kept coming back, doing it over again,” she recalled. “I knew something wasn’t right.”

“I did feel calm,” she recalled. “I usually do not overreact to these things. Maybe it’s the nursing background.” (She enjoyed a 21-year career as a school nurse.)

The radiologist arranged an appointment for a biopsy, and McCormick came through that procedure in good spirits. However, after five days with no word on the results, some of her calm did begin to erode.

She said she’d felt shaken when, on the fifth day, she learned she did indeed have cancer in both breasts. “The doctor referred me to the surgeon of my choice, and I was in her office at 2:15 p.m. the same day,” McCormick recalled. “My husband, Tom, met me there.

“After the doctor set the surgery date, I became upset, and I said to Tom, ‘I can’t do this,’” McCormick reflected. “And he said, ‘Yes, you can.’”

She regained her calm as the date for her surgery approached. On the evening prior, a friend from the neighborhood — a priest — came by to talk and pray with her. “There’s nothing like having a big angel for a neighbor,” McCormick said. “He anointed my head with oil, which is a symbol for healing. It was a very special moment for me. I felt more confident than ever that all would be well.

“My family was with me all day (post-op) and seeing their faces was the best of medicine,” she remembered. “I never had any doubt that the surgery wouldn’t be successful,” she said, and suggested that attitude might have made the difference in her recovery.

“Everybody with breast cancer has their own story,” she added. However, she encouraged anyone still fighting toward remission to cultivate a similar mental toughness.

And she sent out especial encouragement to her nephew’s wife, Traci, just 35 years old, who underwent her own double mastectomy this month.

“She has a strong spirit and a loving family to support her,” McCormick reminded, on the Web page she set up to raise funds for the upcoming Breast Cancer 3-Day. “And she has an extended family of breast cancer survivors who are walking in cities across America carrying the message of Hope.”

McCormick is dedicating her walk to Traci.

She’s been conditioning for the Breast Cancer 3-Day for five months now, walking the roads in Fenwick Island, up to Bethany Beach and down to Northside Park in Ocean City, Md.

On the loop at Northside Park, “I rest about every three miles,” McCormick pointed out. “That gives me a chance to sit down and maybe talk to somebody.

“And it’s amazing — tell people what you’re doing, and they have someone in their family, or a neighbor, who’s had breast cancer. I was talking to one lady about the 3-Day, and she said, “Oh, I want to do that for my husband.” (He’d had a double mastectomy two years ago.)

“I’ve heard so many stories. It gets a little weepy — but only from feeling honored to walk for these people,” she concluded.

To support the 3-Day , visit www.breastcancer3-day.org, then click donate/Philadelphia.

For more information about the Susan G. Komen Foundation, visit www.komen.org/3day.