(Posted: June 16, 2010)

Cheryl Winget is a member of the Board of Directors for the Liberty Hill Volunteer Fire Department. This photo was taken in summer 2009. (RFLH Photo)

It was her third time, so she knew the routine. She picked a recliner on the side of the room that had a nice view. From the fourth floor of the Cedar Park Medical Office Building, she could see the treetops and the blue sky -- it made her feel less anxious.

 

Teresa Winget, her close friend and former sister-in-law, made the ham sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies. And as they watched the slow drip of the drugs hanging from the pole, they laughed about whatever they could. Cheryl Winget had learned how important it was to keep her spirits up.

 

"Someone called me 'Sir' for the first time yesterday," she laughed.

 

Since her first treatment of chemotherapy, most of her blond hair has fallen out leaving her with patches of thinning baby hair that's so soft to the touch you can hardly feel it. Sometimes when she leaves the house, she wears a ball cap. She laughed as she recounted the story of mistaken identity.

 

"It's just a thing, and we're just going through it," she said. 

 

Cheryl uses that line a lot these days. Regardless of whether she says it to put others at ease or to remind herself that she is not in control of what's happening to her body, the uncertainty of it all has become an uncomfortable truth that follows her on her mission to be free of it and whole again.    

 

There wasn't anything about the day that made it more memorable than any other, and nothing about her routine that evening would distinguish it from most other nights. But a discovery before bedtime on Feb. 12th changed her life forever.  

 

While engrossed in a book, Cheryl said she reached to her chest to brush away what first felt like some loose threads. She found it there, near her left breast. She had no idea how long it had been there or what it was. 

 

"It was like a lump and a dent at the same time. It was kind of puckered," she said. It wasn't discolored, which explains why she didn't notice it until the skin raised slightly. She puckered her lips as an example. 

 

The discovery sent her into a panic and she spent the weekend imagining the worst, and thinking about the other women in her family who had it, including her mother. That's when it dawned on her that for the past few nights, something had seemed different about the way she normally got comfortable in bed before falling asleep. Thinking back, she realized it felt like she was laying on a small rock and she had to shift around to get away from it.

 

When Monday morning came, she called her doctor's office and told the nurse of her discovery. Within hours, she was being examined for the first time, and was relieved to hear her doctor say it looked like some sort of injury that was becoming infected. The doctor said it looked like scar tissue, and prescribed antibiotics and scheduled her for a mammogram and a sonogram. While the mammogram showed no problem, the sonogram uncovered a mass on her chest wall about three centimeters in size.    

  

For years, the "c-word" was her worst fear. Primarily because Cheryl, 58, is so afraid of pain that she breaks into tears at the mere sight of a needle.

 

"And that was a few weeks ago," she said, laughing at herself for being such "a woos" when it comes to all things uncomfortable. 

 

The pain takes center stage as she talks about the ordeal she's been through in the past four months. Each test, every procedure and every surgery is described in terms of how painful it was, and every day is measured by how well she managed it. Living with cancer has become a full-time job for her in retirement, and logging all of the details has become a big part of her daily routine. 

 

"You can see how clear this calendar was before Feb. 12th," she said. After that, almost every day contains a note to remind her of appointments, procedures, test results, treatments, medications, side effects, weight changes, hair loss and other physical changes.

 

Underneath the calendar hides a journal where she intended to document her experience with cancer. She said she read somewhere that recording her thoughts would help her sort out her emotions as she took one day at a time. But, the journal has only one entry -- the first day of chemotherapy -- April 7.

 

"I've been a little afraid to do that (write in the journal)," she said. "I'm trying to concentrate on staying in the moment because it helps me stay positive."

 

On March 12, Cheryl was diagnosed with cancer in her left breast. When she got the call that day, her doctor first asked if she was alone. Her friend, Anita Diebert, who now stays with her at night, was standing by when she got the bad news.

 

"That's not what I wanted to hear," Cheryl said. "I guess I cried a little bit." 

 

"I've always been a very spiritual person, although not so religious. For me, it feels like God is always with me and he lifts me up when I need lifting, and I don't have to do anything," she said.

 

Perhaps that was the pivotal moment. Instead of breaking down, feeling sad or sorry for herself, or worrying about the outcome, she focused on the process of getting better. Immediately, she immersed herself in books, did research online and reached out to her friends and family for support and encouragement. She also sought out others who had been through it and were now cancer free.

 

For weeks, she was poked and prodded, and shuttled from one painful experience to another until finally she found herself laying face down in an MRI machine with her breasts hanging toward the floor through holes in a steel table. It was painful and embarrassing -- although she said she lost all modesty long before -- and she reminded herself that it still wasn't quite as bad as the biopsy on the tumor. So far, no amount of pain has compared to that -- an event she was warned would cause "moderate discomfort."   

 

"The sound of this thing was like a staple gun," she remembers, still trying to laugh about the moderate discomfort. "They put a needle in the breast to suck out the tissue, and the second they hit that tumor, it felt like a 2 x 4 board with nails on fire smashed across both breasts."

 

And just as one tries to imagine what that might feel like, Cheryl adds with a proud sense of accomplishment, "but I lived through it." 

 

When all of the testing was complete, there was more bad news. In addition to the tumor in her left breast, the skin near the tumor was also cancerous and the cancer was also in her lymph nodes. Because the cancer was in three locations, the severity level was Stage 3 with Stage 4 being the most advanced and the most serious.

 

Cheryl looked for the good news -- all of this was beatable.

 

Unlike typical cancer treatment regimens where surgery to remove the affected tissue is followed by chemotherapy and radiation, Cheryl's treatment is taking an opposite course. Because of the position of the tumor, the plan is to reduce its size with chemotherapy prior to surgery, then follow up with radiation. She said the left breast must be removed, and to reduce the risk of recurrence, she is considering having them both removed.

 

As if that wasn't enough, there are further complications. In 2007, Cheryl was diagnosed with a heart condition known as Aortic Stenosis. Before she discovered the lump in her breast, she was dealing with the likelihood that at some point surgery would be necessary to replace the thickened valve in her heart that restricts the velocity of blood. Her cardiologist had advised that the surgery be delayed as long as possible or until the risk of dying from the condition was the same as the risk of replacing the valve. When she was diagnosed three years ago, she retired from the US Post Office after 22 years of service.

 

Because the treatment for the breast cancer will impact her heart, the cardiologist is playing an active role as part of Cheryl's medical team. When she went to him for his blessing to start chemotherapy, she was happy to learn that the opening in the valve had actually improved since her previous visit.

 

"That's a God thing," she said.

 

But after three treatments of chemo, things changed. With the opening getting smaller, the risk of heart attack increases. Still he recommended proceeding with the cancer treatments and surgery.

 

In an email to friends after returning from the cardiologist's office, she wrote, "heavy on the praying side. not sitting down, marching thru it! still doing the dance of happiness on the deck, maybe just down a notch on the exuberance. but.........still dancing with the joy of serenity and life!"  

"There's no point in pretending that this isn't happening to me," she said, as she looks out over the treetops of Cedar Park from her chemo drip on the fourth floor of Cedar Park Medical Center. "It feels good to be doing something about it instead of sitting around and waiting.

 

"It's a shame that who we are is so tied up in this. For women, it's all about boobs, hair and nails, and by the time I get through, I won't have any of them," she laughed.

 
She says there is a certain amount of freedom in knowing that, for a while anyway, she won't have to worry about the things that women typically "fuss over" before going out in public. When her hair started falling out in clumps after her first chemotherapy treatment, her aunt and cousin took a stroll with her to a downtown Liberty Hill salon. They watched and laughed as what was left on her head dropped to the floor.

 

"We turned it into a celebration and danced all the way home," she said.

 

Although she hasn't worn it yet, Cheryl was recently fitted for a wig. She said she anticipated the day would come when she might feel more comfortable "wearing hair." So, she attended a Look Good Feel Better workshop in Round Rock that included a skin care/make-up application lesson, demonstration of options for dealing with hair loss, and nail care techniques. The workshop, designed to help cancer patients build self-esteem by helping them look and feel better during treatment, was organized by the American Cancer Society and featured certified cosmetologists and hair professionals.  

 

Cheryl says she knows it won't be quite that easy when the time comes to remove her breast. As the time for surgery draws near, she is already having some second thoughts about whether removing them both is the right choice. Logically, if taking them both reduces the risk of recurrence, it's the right thing to do, she said.

 

But she became somewhat concerned in recent days when the cardiologist warned that the risk of heart attack increased with longer exposure to the anesthesia.    

 

"I've had them all these years. I don't know what it will be like without them," she said. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

 

Anita and Teresa say they are amazed by Cheryl's ability to stay positive despite what seems on some days to be a never-ending stream of bad news.

 

Her closest friends, who have since the diagnosis become her primary caregivers, say Cheryl inspires them every day to live in the moment and cherish every day.

 

"It's encouragement to embrace the day, and I enjoy seeing how she embraces her days," said Anita. "I wanted to be part of this journey with her." 

 

Teresa said Cheryl has always been a very social person. Teresa has taken Cheryl to every doctor's appointment, been with her during every test and stays by her side during chemotherapy.

 

During her most recent treatment, Teresa laughed as she shared stories about Cheryl's interest in all of the happenings in the treatment room. 

 

"She won't let herself go to sleep in here because she's afraid she might miss out on a chance to talk to somebody," Teresa said.

 

With each treatment lasting about three hours, followed by a second visit two days later to receive a "bone shot," Cheryl has plenty of opportunities to watch other patients and regularly strikes up conversations with them because she enjoys talking to people. 

 

"When she is taking the steroids (the day before chemotherapy), she definitely has the gift of gab," laughs Anita. "Cheryl can find the humor in everything. And during an experience like this, that really is a gift."

 

On this particular "chemo day," Cheryl watched as another patient received his bone shot. She tried to compare his reactions to her own. She also watches the nurse to see how gentle she is. Because the procedure is painful, Cheryl said she tries to schedule those appointments around the work schedule of one particular nurse who seems to be better at it than others.  

 

The injection of the medication Neulasta takes five minutes and even though she has been through it several times, it doesn't get any easier. For Cheryl, who is still struggling with a fear of needles, the one used to give the injection is the source of much of the discomfort. Doctors say the injection is necessary after chemotherapy to stimulate blood cell growth. The medication is injected into the muscle and leaves her aching two to three days afterward.

On the day of her third chemotherapy treatment, Cheryl said she made the mistake of asking the oncologist the probability of the cancer coming back five years after surgery. Because she has cancer in three places, there were no clear statistics and the answer was complicated. 

For the first time since she learned she had the disease, Cheryl said she felt herself slipping into depression.

 

"When I realized I was asking the question 'why did this have to happen to me?', that's when I knew I was in trouble," she said. "I started praying and talking, and I had to work at consciously changing my thought process to bring me back to the moment."

 

Anita said the medication sometimes has that effect on Cheryl, and she fears the "dark moments" may become more frequent as the journey becomes more difficult. 

 

"Occasionally, she slips into a dark moment and it seems to happen more when she gets run down from the medicine. But she walks herself through it, and it doesn't take long before she is back to her old self," she said. 

 

Cheryl describes herself as a spiritual person who lost faith in organized religion as a teenager growing up in a Southern Baptist family. A very prayerful person, she said a series of "miracles" through the years has kept her faith strong. 

 

Through the first four months of this journey, she says small things have happened along the way that remind her that she isn't walking the path alone. While some might say the circumstances are nothing more than coincidental, Cheryl views them as "gifts" sent from God to keep her spirits up.

 

In her mind, it's more than a coincidence that her first chemotherapy treatment was scheduled on April 7 -- two years to the hour after her mother passed away at age 84. She had breast cancer 22 years earlier. After two lumpectomies in the same breast over the course of a year, the breast was removed and the cancer never re-occurred.

 

The day before the two-year anniversary of her mother's death, Cheryl had surgery to remove the sentinal lymph node. A port was also implanted in her upper right chest so she could receive future intravenous medications. During the procedure, the surgeon discovered that the cancer in her lymph nodes was actually more involved than he previously thought, and informed her that two of five levels of lymph nodes would have to be removed when the breast is removed. When she arrived home that evening after the surgery, she was called to come in for the first chemotherapy treatment the following day.           

 

Two years earlier, Cheryl spent that night by her mother's side, watching her and knowing that she wasn't likely to live through the night. Shortly after she took her last breath, Cheryl says her mother gave her the greatest gift.

 

"Her eyes flew open and they were the brightest blue I'd ever seen. She looked straight into my eyes and said 'I love you.' That's all I ever wanted to hear from her, and it was the most awesome gift ever," she said.

 

Although she realizes the most difficult challenges are yet to come, Cheryl said her experience with cancer has been a blessing. She said she has been overwhelmed by the support and encouragement from people in the community, friends and family, who regularly stop by to check on her, bring food and even mow her yard. 

 

"I wouldn't have chosen this path for myself, but it's been such a rewarding spiritual journey," she said. "I have a lot of trust in God and the people around me. This has been so comforting and peaceful, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

 

"I'm going to be well again. I'm going to be okay," she said.