There’s a subculture for those who experience chemotherapy.
The long hours of sitting with what begins as a small group of strangers while the medicine drips into your veins; week after week, month after month. Each has their own story and while they are unique, their cancer brings them all to the same place, physically, as well as emotionally.
“Cancer is the great equalizer,” said Jackie Witherspoon, who now knows, after undergoing treatments herself.
It was while she sat in such a room receiving chemo that Witherspoon discovered a story existed not only about the insidious disease of breast cancer, but also the strength that emerges from those who battle back.
“The Survivors’ Walk” is Witherspoon’s book, a novel about five women and their journey, both together and separately, in and out of the land of cancer.
For Witherspoon, 64, it all began in the winter of 2012 when she discovered a lump high above her breast. In her mind, the lump was a concern, yes, but not a cause for undue alarm. Witherspoon attributed the lump to a strained muscle from having recently moved heavy furniture.
When she casually brought the matter up to her sisters, “they went ballistic,” insisting she see her physician.
Sure enough, tests were ordered and a biopsy revealed the cancer.
Lesson #1: “For God’s sake have a doctor,” she said. “I can’t imagine having something major happen and not having a primary care doctor who knows your health history.”
Lesson #2: Follow through. “I refused to believe the diagnosis. I’d had suspicious mammograms before and I thought this was just another instance of doctors wanting to keep seeing me,” she said.
A journalist by training, Witherspoon comes by her suspicions naturally.
“Even the night before the surgery I didn’t want to believe it. But in the back of my mind, I knew it was there.”
The surgery was on March 9, the day before her 61st birthday.
Deemed a success, the surgery found the cancer had not spread beyond that isolated lump.
“My doctor reminded me it would have been a whole different ball game had the cancer spread to my lymph nodes,” she said. “Finding the cancer early is critical to overcoming it.”
Following the surgery, Witherspoon endured one year of chemotherapy treatments.
