Written By Rose

 This was written for this blog by my mother in the summer of 2008.



Hello,
   It was December of 1996, almost 12 years ago when I was first diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.  Jeff had just proposed to me, when we found out two weeks later that I had cancer.  January 6th of 1997, I had a mastectomy, followed  by reconstructive surgery. that took 7 hours. After that I had some more reconstructive surgery. I started  chemo 3 weeks after that. So for 3 months I took it every 3 weeks. Since my tumor was so big they wanted me to do a stem cell transplant, which was fairly new.. So I waited 3 weeks to build up some strength and then I went in the hospital and did my harvesting in which they took some of my platelets out and then they froze them. The next week I went in and they gave me chemo for 4 days straight and then on the 5th day they gave me my platelets. Then I stayed in the hospital for 3 weeks to build up strength, When I came home a nurse came out to the house every day, cause they thought I had a staff infection in my port that was in my chest.
   After I came home from that Jeff and I decided to get married, So on August 2nd we did. It was just a small doing. With all our kids, our brother and sisters and moms. Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Bill, who brought mom down from the U.P. And Jeff’s buddy Scott, who stood in the Wedding.  And Jeff’s buddy Pete Clark  and wife Pat. Also there, was Jeff’s friend Jim Grant and his wife Diana.  It was a nice day,
   Two weeks after we got married I started radiation. I went every day for 6 weeks at flower hospital.  After that I did well, it took me a long time to get my strength back. Today’s day they don’t even do the stem cell transplants for breast cancer anymore. It didn’t prove to save a lot of lives.
    Well after 11 years its back. In March of 2008, this year, I went to check out my back, cause it was hurting me, and it ended up to be bone cancer. My breast cancer metastasized into my bones.  I was very surprised. I never thought about cancer. But anyway I knew I had another battle on my hands.
   My Oncologist is up in Ann Arbor, at St Joseph hospital. So she started me on Radiation right away on my spine, cause I had a mass in it. They wanted to get rid of it as much as they could. So I did that for 6 weeks.  Then she started me on Estrogen Blockers, cause the type of cancer I had usually will disappear when using it. But It didn’t work for me. So now I’m doing Chemo again. But it is not the kind that usually makes you sick. I’m so glad... The Chemo I took the first time, made me very sick. Right now I just get very tired and fatigued.
   I couldn’t have done all of this if it weren’t for my family. I have been so blessed.  Jeff has been so good though all of this. My mom who lives with us helps out a lot. She loves keeping busy by doing dishes and doing the laundry. My sister Sharon comes over almost every day. My daughter Jessie came out from California with her kids, Shelby and Hayden. She has been here for over a month now. Jessie has been busy since she has been out here. She is producing a movie about her grandpa on the naval ship the Laffey, which was in World War II. My son Jeff, has come home from Maryland 3 times to visit. He’s a supervisor for a golf course that there building out there.  Joe lives in Point Place in Ohio, which is a 35 minute drive from here and he comes out a couple times a week. He’s a financial advisor. My stepdaughter Kelly and her husband Jimmy have three kids, Grace, Bryce and a new addition Reece. Kelly is a Manager for Aramark food service and Jimmy is an Engineer. My stepson Sam lives with his sister Mandy and Tyler. Right now he is in construction and is a manager for valet parking for a hotel in Maumee Ohio. And then there’s Mandy and her fiance Tyler, Mandy also works for Aramark food service and she is a accountant and Tyler works as a millwright.  I love our family, the grandkids are just wonderful. I adore them all.
    All I can say is enjoy life as it comes. Laugh, Live and Love, and of course remember God ‘s in charge !!
  
                                    Love to All, Rose

Putting Cancer On Trial

If I’m ever at a dinner party and someone says...‘Geesh, how long has it been since Michael Jackson died?”... I’ll be able to answer quickly without hesitation. That’s because he died a few months after my mother, and there’s no way I’ll forget how long that’s been. For two and a half years, the Dr. whom everyone saw as the guilty party in the death of Michael Jackson, has been on trial.
Late in the evening on November 7th, he was found guilty.

Tuesday morning, November 8th, I was at the gym doing cardio on a spin bike while I was watching the news. They showed us over and over and over the reading of the sentence and the Dr. being handcuffed, presumably to be taken somewhere where he’ll spend some time away from society. We saw Michael’s family elated with smiles on their faces saying ‘justice was served’ and other things that eluded to the fact that they were happy. Now, I know, they’d give up any and all of this to have Michael alive and well, but ‘justice was served.’

I was angry...for a moment. I think I pedaled a little faster for a while and thought about how nice it would be to put cancer on trial. I thought about how nice it would be to see Breast Cancer in its best suit sitting at the defendants table...see its face when a guilty verdict was read in the death of Rose Marie Hunt...see its face as it was hauled away in handcuffs to be taken out of society deemed “not worthy to be among us.”

That would be nice.

But obviously, this Law & Order scenario is something that will happen only on paper, for now. In the meantime, the ‘trial’ we have cancer on, is one we all have to participate in. We are all prosecutors. Our genetics and choices among other things certainly influence the outcome of anything that may happen to us...as is the case of Michael Jackson...my mother, myself and the neighbor next door.

Although we know breast cancer is the culprit...the guilty party...the enemy and we know our society would be wonderful without it, this trial will not end in a guilty verdict until we find a cure. My prayer is that it happens in my lifetime....so I can say on camera to the world that ‘justice was served.’