There was no family history of breast cancer, and Kathryn Rucker was now marked as the first person in her immediate family and on her mother’s side to have this diagnosis.
She had her first appointment with a surgeon after the new year, and he decided that surgery would be the best thing to do after reviewing her mammogram and biopsy report. A lumpectomy was conducted the next week followed by a mastectomy a week later due to the surgeon not being certain that the lumpectomy got all of the cancer.
A lumpectomy removes the tumor and the surrounding tissue while a mastectomy removes the entire breast.
“That was a period of a lot of fast decisions,” Kathryn said.
The recovery process was easy, and the young wife and mother returned to work soon after because she knew she couldn’t just sit at home.
“I bounced back,” Kathryn said. “I was 31 at the time, young, my body was able to bounce back from that.”
This also meant that she wouldn’t rest a lot before starting chemotherapy (or “chemo”), which the National Cancer Institute defines as a cancer treatment that uses drugs to kill cancer cells. This was odd because most people with breast cancer take time off during the treatment, but Kathryn wanted something that would push her to get up every morning.
The 31 year old began chemo seven weeks after the mastectomy. Radiation, which uses x-rays to kill cancer cells, wasn’t required because her cancer grade was a 2b, meaning that the cancer had spread to only one of the axillary lymph nodes.
After the first chemo treatment, Kathryn’s oncologist told her that she may not lose her hair, but she decided to shave her head six days later. Kathryn ran her fingers through her hair at work one day and saw it come out. When she got home, she decided to get her husband Derrick’s clippers and shave it off.
“For me, it was something I could control,” Kathryn said. “I felt liberated because I didn’t want to see it come out slowly.”
She also experienced tiredness, fatigue and debilitating heartburn. There were many times when her tiredness caused her to go directly to bed after coming home from work. She would wake up the next morning to her sons being at school and Derrick at work.
“I missed a lot because I was sleep,” Kathryn said.
Chemo was one of the hardest things Kathryn went through, and she knows the only way she made it through was because of God. He not only carried her through the treatment, but also her family for the journey ahead.
Caleb Britt 