by Mark Schaaf
Daily Lobo
Breast cancer survivors are not the only ones affected by the disease, Eileen Hillson said.
"It's not just women, but their brothers, boyfriends, friends, husbands," said Hillson, an organizer of a breast cancer survivor panel. "They need to be educated about breast cancer, so you can try to prevent it and find it at the earliest stages."
About 70 people, almost all breast cancer survivors or caregivers, heard three survivor stories on Saturday at Sandia Resort and Casino.
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The survivors were joined by a close family member who shared in the experience. Several of the survivors were UNM graduates.
Each member of the panel was at different stages of breast cancer.
UNM graduate Elise Pickette, 37, was diagnosed last April after she went in for a breast reduction procedure. There was no outward sign of cancer, she said.
In May 2005, she underwent an operation and six weeks of radiation therapy.
One of the side effects, she said, were mood swings. Pickette is a mother of two young children, and she said she didn't want her kids to remember her in those moods.
"That was heartbreaking to not be myself," she said.
Marty Wilson said she has dealt with the disease twice.
She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996, shortly after her sister died from the same disease. She underwent a lumpectomy, radiation, chemotherapy and five years of medication.
Then, in 2002, Wilson told her doctor about a pain in her neck. She was diagnosed with cancer in her spine but has recovered well, she said.
Last year, she completed a 60-mile walk for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
"I feel like I'm a picture of health," Wilson said. "There's not anything it keeps me from doing."
Erin Young, Wilson's daughter, brought tears to many eyes when she described the aftermath of her mother's breast cancer.
She has learned to appreciate the small things in life, from smelling flowers to hugging her husband, she said.
"I have learned to live life in a very different way," Young said.
Peggy Keleher was diagnosed in 1965 when treatment for breast cancer still had a long way to go.
The only procedure performed on her, she said, was a "radical mastectomy," invented in 1910.
Keleher, who was 28 at the time of her diagnosis, helped start "Reach to Recovery," an American Cancer Society program in New Mexico.
She also said cancer patients should constantly ask questions to make sure the right treatment is given to them.
"There's a time to accept things and a time to question," Keleher said.
The event was part of the Nancy Floyd Haworth Memorial Breast Cancer Lectureship. Haworth was a 1970 UNM graduate who died from breast cancer in 1990.
There was also a second panel Saturday that discussed new treatments and innovations in breast cancer research, Hillson said.
