Survivors on Survival

Kimberley McGee

Wednesday, Dec. 29, 1999 | 9:38 a.m.

It was the word that scared her more than anything else:

Cancer.

The doctor told 42 year-old Barbara Hill over a telephone in the diagnostic lab where she had been placed after a routine examination:

"It's cancer."

Within days she had changed from a successful career woman to a cancer patient.

She was whisked to a surgeon. She fully expected him to tell her how long she had to say goodbye to her family, how bad it was.

In a bewildered tone, she told the new stranger in the white coat that she had cancer. Her new surgeon said, "Let me be the judge of that."

"And that's when I took control," Hill said. "That's when I began to fight."

That's when she found hope. "I survived," Hill says. "It was painful, but it's past."

Hill is one of more than two dozen women from around the Las Vegas Valley who have experienced the fear, resentment and confusion that cancer brings, and are using that experience to help others.

Hill is a volunteer for the Reach For Recovery program which, since 1969, has counseled women who are venturing down the similarly scary path of breast cancer. Shame, frustration, anger and fear accompany them down this path and the women of Reach for Recovery, an arm of the American Cancer Society, want to add hope, humor and, yes, maybe a little happiness to the trip, helping cancer patients peel back the layers of all that they are feeling in order to move on with their lives.

The program is somewhat tailored to each woman's situation. A kit is delivered to the home in the arms of a beaming survivor. Each kit contains: information on what breast cancer is; exercises to rehabilitate lost motion in the arm from a mastectomy where the breast and some muscle has been removed to prevent the spreading of the cancer; and tips on what they may need to take care of themselves physically.

But then there are the things no one really wants to discuss: the question of death; what to ask your doctor and how; tips on how to take care of your life while it is interrupted; and how the American Cancer Society can help.

There are also the letters: thoughtful, pre-written letters to ease the fears of husbands, sons, parents and friends. And -- most especially -- daughters, who sometimes have the hardest time accepting the cancer diagnoses of their mothers. They often feel their own mortality, as if they too are now in the cross hairs of cancer.

Grace's story

Grace Boldon, who has lived in Las Vegas for a decade, was 31 when she found a lump in her breast. It was 1961 and she was a single, black woman living in the South. Not much was known about breast cancer then, or cancer in general -- just cut it out. Boldon gave the surgeon permission to "take it off."

He did. She was glad it was over.

Then she had to get back to her life -- alone. Her sister took care of her for a while, but couldn't stand the 8 1/2-inch-thick scar that ran down the left side of her sister's slim chest.

"She couldn't stand the sight of it, so I went home," Boldon says, becoming alone again.

Then, a knock on her door brought help and hope in the form of other cancer survivors and volunteers from the American Cancer Society. They brought her bandages, took her to doctors' appointments and talked to her about all the things racing through her mind: Will somebody want me? Will I get my strength back? Will I live?

"So many women worry that they won't be able to (attract) men," Boldon says.

But they do. She did. Boldon tells the women she counsels now about life after breast cancer. "They sometimes feel that they won't be attractive," Boldon says. "It's OK they feel that way, but you move on."

Boldon met a man and got married. The long white scar that ran from her neck to her waist was only a small and silent reminder of the past, not a symbol of the future. "Early detection, that's what matters," she says.

The Reach for Recovery women have in common this positive attitude that helped them recover and gave them the zest needed to counsel others. They care, they understand, and they have been to that place where no woman seems to think she will ever be.

Carol's story

Carol Ninenhimer, a Las Vegas resident and Reach for Recovery volunteer, was 61 when she decided she should get a mammogram. "It'd been a while and I thought it was a good idea," she said.

So she traipsed down to the doctor's office and smooshed her breasts between the X-ray paddles. It was uncomfortable. It was cold and frustratingly slow.

It saved her life.

"They found a lump on the back wall of my breast," she says. "I told them to take it off. Take it all off."

The surgery was scheduled for the next week, New Year's Day, 1985. During surgery, while she was still roughly aware and they had yet to cut, Ninenhimer's eyes fluttered open to see a star burst-like pattern on a fresh X-ray of her left breast. She knew this meant that the cancer had spread and she wanted the whole breast removed and immediately started thinking of the future.

Her family and friends waited quietly in her room for her to come out of the anesthesia. The Texas A&M game was on. They knew she loved Texas A&M. "You don't live in Texas and not like A&M," she says.

She began to emerge from the cloudy sleep, aware of her surroundings and the people in the room.

The first thing she said was: "What's the score?"

And she moved on from there. "You had to," she says. "It was painful. I had moments."

At the time she was a top-selling real estate agent for a national company. However, after she had breast cancer, her superiors asked that she quietly step down. It was uncomfortable to know the top-selling agent had had breast cancer. It made clients uncomfortable. Ninenhimer understood. She took a lesser position and went on her way, smiling, and dragging a large prosthesis around in her $325 "special" bra designed to conceal the missing breast.

"It was hot, wearing that big old heavy thing in my bra," she says.

It scratched against her still red, raw scar. The sweat caused by the hot Texas summer pooled in the lining of the bra and irritated that scar that ran from under her arm to the middle of her chest. She kept smiling, never letting on.

But, luckily for one woman, word got around.

Another woman shyly approached Ninenhimer in the cafeteria. She had found a lump in her breast. She was scared. It had been months and she didn't know how to find the strength to face the unknown. She'd rather not know at all. But Ninenhimer seemed fine. She had survived, with aplomb.

"I told her to go right on over to the hospital, right then and get a mammogram," Ninenhimer says. "She listened to me. It was cancer. I helped her through every bit of it. She survived because of what I said."

Ninenhimer thought this was a good thing. A very good thing. She has not been quiet since.

After surgery, the biggest hurdle at first is how to move on. Sometimes it's the small things that can give the biggest heartache and headache -- and construct the biggest hurdles.

"I feel women need to see that you can go swimming and do things afterwards, they are not hiding anymore," Recovery volunteer Anna Skaggs of Boulder City says.

Anna's story

When Skaggs was diagnosed in 1986 she was a semiretired schoolteacher in a loving marriage, with teenagers at home, including a visiting student from another country.

"I thought 'This can't happen to me! I have an exchange student living with us!' " Skaggs says.

The teen stuck with his sponsor family, much to her surprise, and actually discussed what she was going through, something her daughter couldn't do right away.

"It was hard to talk to the kids because they were teenagers," she says. "I was self-conscious about talking to them. They were very supportive but kids are in their own world. I knew I was loved no matter what was cut off."

Skaggs had a mammogram -- which is recommended every year after the age of 40.

But nothing showed up on Skaggs' mammogram. She had an infection which would not go away and was causing pain and irritation in her breast. When the surgeon went in to relieve the infection, he found a tumor.

"They took the whole breast," she says. "They said, 'Sit down, Mrs. Skaggs. You have a malignancy.' I thought, 'I'm going to die.' In the generation I grew up in, people I knew who got cancer all died. It was not a curable disease.

"I felt everything spun out of control when I first found out," Skaggs adds. "Sickness and hospitals were not part of my scene. I felt helpless."

As a teenager, Skaggs knew of a woman who had breast cancer. It wasn't talked about much except in hushed, worried tones. When she died, Skaggs was sympathetic but not surprised.

"It was very hush-hush then," Skaggs says. "But by the time I got breast cancer, Betty Ford and other celebrities were dealing with it publicly."

When she went home, sure, she had a few moments of sadness, she says. But, like most of the women in the recovery program, she was determined to get on with her life. It's only a breast, not an arm, she says.

"Once I had the surgery, people called me and asked me to talk to other women who had been diagnosed -- their mother, sister," she says. "I thought, 'Is this an epidemic?' "

No, but the shame had been lessened for most, and they could talk about it, as with any other major, life-threatening illness. And Skaggs found that talking eased some of the intense emotions.

"I was still scared," she says of those post-surgery days. "I didn't know if they had gotten it all. I was worried about having chemotherapy. Even back then, people took chemo and they still died. It was an awful thing to go through with bad results."

The first year was the hardest after losing her left breast.

"I admit, I felt very sorry for myself. The Victoria's Secret catalog was very hard," she says. "People looking very sexy. I thought, 'It's not fair! It's not fair!' " Then she began to look at her reality.

"I've had my kids, I really don't need it. It could have been worse, in my nose where you can see it," she says. "It's not pretty but at least it's under your clothes.

"God spared my life and I can help other women," she says.

She began to swim again at the public pool, something she had always loved to do. She was nervous. She didn't want to be stared at, although she was not ashamed, and didn't want a falsie to come bobbing out of her swimsuit, either.

"I sewed a little something into my swimsuit and went," she says. "Little by little, as I felt better, I started gaining control of my life. Do your normal things as much as you are able to so you can keep control of your life."

Getting the little things back in her life helped her heal and reclaim her life. "I started swimming, playing piano again. I finally felt I was getting past it," she says. "You have to maintain the things that make you you. You are more than a breast."

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For information on the Reach for Recovery program, call Chris Vetter at 798-6877.

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