Anyone who knows her will tell you that Anita is a sweet, loving, vivacious friend, wife and mother. She doesn’t like to talk about it, but Anita is also a really fierce cancer survivor.
Her story goes back at least to 1982 when at the tender age of 25 she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease (stage IIa). At the time the story was mixed, but they told us, “if you’ve got to get cancer, this is the one to get.” That was because they had just made some dramatic improvements in therapies.
As it was, Anita had to have a few surgeries, and what is called “mantle radiation” meaning radiation treatments to her mediastinum and vicinity.
That was a challenge, with all the side effects, but we got through it and got on with our lives.
In 1985, she had a “relapse” in that a stray Hodgkins lymph node was found on her pericardium. I still remember the doctors arguing whether it was actually a relapse or just a sport that had been missed by the radiation. Either way, they just surgically removed that thing, rather than giving her chemotherapy right there and then.
Cool.
A few years later, in the 90’s we started noticing symptoms that something whacky was going on with her thyroid. This went on for a while, until around 2000, we learned it turned out to be cancer. Thyroid problems affect a lot of women these days, many more than you might think. Get out there and have yours checked, ladies. But like the stuff we’re dealing with now, in Anita’s case, this was just another delightful side effect of the radiation.
For those who are keeping count, she had a small skin cancer in there too, pulled out en passant with the thyroidectomy.
Don’t get us wrong: we’re very grateful for the great strides modern medicine has made, but it ain’t all peaches and cream.
So it seems like we’ve been going from pillar to post since then with a variety of other health issues, until the most recent event. In October 2010 Anita was diagnosed with breast cancer (stage IV).
That’ll kind of knock you off your feet. But we’re going to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep fighting, and never give up, and never give in, because that’s what we do.
And we’re going to hit this thing with the biggest hammer we can find, and keep banging on it until it gives in, just like we’ve done however many times before.
Thanks to everyone out there who’s care, support, prayers and love mean so much and do make a difference.
“We have surmounted all the perils and endured all the agonies of the past. We shall provide against and thus prevail over the dangers and problems of the future, withhold no sacrifice, grudge no toil, fear no foe. All will be well. We have, I believe, within us the life-strength and guiding light by which we may find the harbour of safety, after a storm-beaten voyage.”-Churchill