My name is Robert and I’m a prostate cancer survivor. On a personal note, I’m 56 years old, I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I’m currently a resident of Blackwood, New Jersey. Separated with a son aged 22 a recent college graduate and starting his first job. So I feel free from debt for the first time in probably four years.
In telling you my story I recall it was about four years ago. In fact, it was around Thanksgiving, in November of 1995, I had just had my regular checkup with my doctor. And I had a prostate cancer test, a PSA or Prostate Specific Andogen test, which is a blood test, and that was part of my normal routine, which I’ve been doing since about age 50. And thought nothing of it. My doctor called while I was out of town and indicated on my message service that I needed to call him back. And since he’s not revered for his bedside manner, it was kind of scary to hear him with such urgency in his voice to give him a call back, which I did. And what he said was he wanted me to come for a consultation, which I did. And at that time he wanted me to have further tests because my PSA had elevated from about 3.5 to about 4.3, since the last time. It wasn’t so much it was such a dramatic increase numerically, but the rapidity with which the number had gone he had some concern about how fast it had risen in the three months prior since I had my last examination.
Confirmed suspicions
It was his recommendation at that time that I go see a urologist who was going to give me a biopsy, and immediately there was cause for great concern. I was scared. I’ve always been reasonably healthy so the idea of further tests was somewhat scary and I went and had the biopsy. And I remember going into this rather dark, chilly room, and there were about two or three people, one was a technician. And there were some graduate students standing around. I guess they were residents, and they were going to watch and observe the biopsy that was being taken. Ultrasound, I think it was called, not a biopsy. Ultrasound. And I remember this lady inserting this instrument, in my rectum, and she indicated to me that this would show the inside on a screen if there was any evidence of cancerous cells, then she would immediately call the doctor in. And I remember feeling most uncomfortable and feeling most unmanly with this female technician. And in fact, no sooner than she had this instrument in me than one of the residents kind of streaked and suggested that there was something he or she saw at the time. Well about 30 seconds later the doctor came in, and he began the process of giving me the biopsy, which was a matter of clipping off tissues. …read the rest of this entry»

Ric: Thyroid cancer survivor
My name is Ric, I live in Londonderry, New Hampshire. I’m fifty-five years old and have been married to Diane for 33 years. I was born in West Virginia, moved to New England in 1971, where I’ve been working in public relations and publicity. And I’m currently public information director in second largest community health center in Massachusetts, which is ironic, given that I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1995, just about 8 months after I started working there. My diagnosis was discovered at the end of our annual physical. I asked my doctor to look at a lump in my throat, and we began a series of tests and I had surgery in October of ‘95. My diagnosis was poorly differentiated follicular carcinoma with Hurthle cell variant, all of which translates to, this is not a good kind of thyroid cancer to have, even if thyroid cancer is a highly curable disease.
Well over 80% of the people with thyroid cancer live to die of old age. This is a very survivable cancer. Follicular, however, is a little trickier, and my tumor was large. It was 8cm by 10cm and by the time we had the surgery, it had grown into my jugular vein so they had to resect the jugular vein, and the surgery instead of being a couple hours, went six and a half hours. And it was complicated and I woke up from surgery and found that I had bilateral vocal cord paralysis, so I couldn’t breathe or speak well. And a week after my initial surgery, where the left lobe of my thyroid was removed, they went back in and did an emergency tracheotomy, so I had a breathing tube in my neck for three or four months. …read the rest of this entry»

Greetings. I am Po Ling. I used to live in Hong Kong. I have been making movies since I was a kid until present. It has been 30 or 40 years. How old am I? I think it is unnecessary to go into detail. If I said I was 30 years old, you wouldn’t have believed me anyways, right? I used to live in Hong Kong, and then I moved to Taiwan and stayed there for 8 years. Then I came to Canada about 14 years ago.
Before coming to Canada, I had been making movies. I think you all know about it. Before I was living a life of making movies until I came here more than ten years ago. Although I no longer act in movies, many people still care about me. They call and ask me to go on stage and things like that, so sometimes I will work a little bit. It all depends on the situation, doing it with good friends; it is more like working for the fun of it. Since we have come to Canada our lives have been very peaceful and very leisurely. My husband plays golf. He plays it everyday. I didn’t play at first, but now my husband and I play together. Please don’t get me wrong, we play golf to maintain our health. We are not being extravagant, but [we] just enjoy it. I can tell you that in Canada playing golf is very common; average people can certainly afford to play golf.
Currently I am living with my grandchildren–my two grandkids and my oldest son and daughter-in-law. My two grandkids are very adorable; indeed they are very lovely. Living together has brought us lots of happiness, especially the two grandkids. They hang around our room all of the time, and take over our television. Of course, we watch cartoons with them. We all are very happy. …read the rest of this entry»

Caring for a Husband with Cancer
Hi, my name is Paula. I’m 44 years old. I live in the mountains in Virginia and I’m a caregiver to my husband that has cancer. He was originally diagnosed in February of ‘93 and was in remission for just about six years, and it came back in October of ‘98. It started out, it was inside of his bladder, and when it came back in ‘98, it was in his lymph nodes. He’s young; he was 43 when he was initially diagnosed, so everything that we read, and all the doctors that we talked to, everybody that we had dealings with were used to dealing with people that were considerably older. The average age for my husband’s type of cancer is 75. So it was interesting. We’ve done a lot of reading, which has been very helpful because we haven’t been able to get a lot of good answers, at times. It started in ‘98 with some chemo, the week of Christmas. He had a bladder removed and bladder reconstruction in June of ‘99. The surgery was not successful in the fact that his bladder doesn’t function; he has to catheterize himself every three to four hours, so that’s kind of a drag. But then he did some more chemo after that. He had [a] seven-month remission last year, and this year it’s only been about three months; it’s back again. We found out in July that it was back, and he’s not taking any chemo at the moment; he’s doing some alternative things. But he said he would do chemo again if it gets any worse.
It’s been a very trying three years. There’s been good things; there’s been bad things. He’s been very sick at times. He doesn’t have a lot of good days. He’ll have a good day or two, and then he’ll have a couple bad days. He gets depressed because he’s home by himself all day. He was home by himself all day and I just got him a little kitten last week to keep him company and he named her Chemo. He said the chemo did good things for him, so he thought this little kitty was going to do good things for him, too. So she’s here to keep him company during the day. …read the rest of this entry»

My name is Patty, and I am 64 years of age. I live in Minnesota. I’m married and I had five children. We’ve been married for 43 years and out of that 43 years, my husband and I have lived with cancer for 28 of those years. Keith was first diagnosed with colon cancer when he was 34 years of age. At that time, he had the surgery. It had not pierced the wall, so he did not require any further treatment just to recover. I did not feel that I was required to be a caregiver in a large sense of the word, because he was back at work in such a quick amount of time. We did talk about our feelings, but that was as far as it went.
We went along for 25 years and then my husband was diagnosed with recurring colon cancer. It was in a new area. There again, he had the surgery. It was intact so there was no further treatment required, and he was back up and at ‘em in no time at all!
The following year our daughter, Lori, who was 31 years of age and lived in Texas at that time, was diagnosed with what is called a non-functioning Islet cell tumor. It’s a very rare form of cancer. She’s the youngest person on record to have ever had this type of cancer. …read the rest of this entry»

How are you? I think I should introduce myself, shouldn’t I? I do not know who you are, but at least I should let you know about me.
I am a seventy-year-old woman. Though my age is old, my heart isn’t. So, [laughs] you can hear that I am very happy, right? And if you think life is free of obstacles, it is not. In life you will need to face birth, aging, illness and death. These are things that everybody must face. How you face it is up to you.
When you are facing these obstacles, if you let yourself be trapped in the middle of them, then you will be inside the difficulty. But if you are in the difficulty and say: “I will not be trapped in the middle of this, and I will get out of this trap”, it is possible.
Why do I say this? Because I would like to tell you about things that I have been through. I am an old woman of seventy years of age. And what is my name? My real name is Yen-Ping Liu Chiao. Chiao is my husband’s surname. Yen-Ping Liu is my maiden name, but I have another name, it is “Little Gold Nugget.” It was given to me by my colleagues when I was working for the radio station.
Actually my life is quite complex because I was adopted. My biological father’s name is Liu, my adopted family’s name is Gin, [meaning] “gold,” so they gave me that. When I worked in broadcasting, they gave me the name “Little Gold Nugget” because I was very small.
Strength from God’s Love
Do you agree that there is a creator of the universe? And that He is love? The most important thing is, I have known Him–my life has been changed. He is the strength that keeps me going in my life. No matter how difficult the situation may be, He stays with me and walks with me. I am not trying to preach. Absolutely not. I only want to introduce you to the source of strength in my life. …read the rest of this entry»

Norton’s Saga
My name is Norton. I’m a survivor of advanced metastatic prostate cancer. I’m 79 years old. I live in Northern California. My wife, Arlene, and I have been married for 58 years. We have one daughter and four grandchildren. Now, my saga with prostate cancer is a long story. I watched my grandfather die an excruciatingly painful death from prostate cancer 53 years ago, in 1947. My mother died with breast cancer in 1971. Both of these cancers are adeno-carcinoma, they are hormonal cancers, and they have serious hereditary implications. But little did I realize at that time that this family background of cancer might some day affect me.
Early warnings
In the late 1980’s, I began to get up 4 or 5 times a night to urinate, and once I had blood in my body fluids. I told my internist about this and I was told, these are the sorts of problems that old men have. I was then about I think 69 years old. This unfortunately gave me a false sense of wellbeing and I felt that if the doctor wasn’t concerned, why should I worry. About a year later, while doing a digital rectal examination on me, the same internist found a nodule on my prostate. He said it was pretty soft and he didn’t think it was cancer, but I made an immediate appointment with the urologist. I then had my first prostate-specific antigen test. This is the test that is properly known as the PSA test. My test result was 37 anagrams per milliliter of prostate-specific antigens. Now normal is from 0 to 4.5 for someone my age. So I was many times normal. I then had a transrectal ultrasound which tentatively identified a tumor in my prostate. I had two single needle biopsies of the prostate. The tissue was sent to a local pathologist for review. I waited for several weeks, which seemed to me like an eternity. It turned out that the specimen had been sent to the University of Virginia Medical School to get a second pathological opinion. I was diagnosed with a Gleason 6 cancer cell, which is a moderately aggressive cancer. …read the rest of this entry»

My name is Nick Sullo. I am a cancer survivor. I’m 55 years old. I’m a resident of Connecticut. I discovered in 1989 that I had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I have been living in New Jersey, where the original diagnosis was made, with my family: a son and a daughter in their late 20s, and my wife. We’ve been married for 31 years now. And when cancer struck in August of 1989, my life definitely changed. I was a product manager for an international chemical company; traveled extensively in the United States and in Europe; and was looking forward to a long career with a happy retirement, watching my children grow, marry. But cancer, certainly when I was told that I had cancer, it completely changed my perspective on life.
The primary issue for me was the most difficult thing was when I was told that I had cancer. Cancer to me had always been, as far as anybody in my family and friends, a death sentence. And so the initial discussion with my doctor and my wife just led to a very, very emotional, as you can imagine, and gut wrenching discussion, mostly one sided. Your breath is taken away by the words that you’re told, that you have cancer.
When the doctor finished with his little presentation, one thing that I have to give him credit for, he got on the telephone and called another gentleman who had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma as a survivor, had just gone through the treatment, and handed me the phone. I was really distraught at that time but it’s amazing how all of a sudden he created hope for me, when I had no hope at all for the future.
I subsequently had a relationship with this other gentleman, and that was the start of changing my feeling about cancer. And that there was hope, that there was a treatment, that there was hope, and there was a future after cancer. So I did go through ten months of treatment, chemotherapy, followed by six months of remission. Unfortunately, the cancer reoccurred. I then, for one year, because I had slow growing lymphoma, the doctors just wanted to monitor it because, in fact, it could just be in a very stable state at that point. But we monitored it for one year, but the cancer continued to grow. …read the rest of this entry»

My name is Nancy, and I have colon and rectal cancer, supposedly, but it is a rare cancer. Clear cell carcinoma that involves the endocrine glands and it’s very rare. But this is my story here. I’ll just have to tell you one small bit of information which becomes very major, during the later part of my statement. I was a graduate in 1969, from high school. I went to beauty school and I met this guy, his name was Howard. He was a Christian guy and was just kind of frumpy. When you’re just out of high school, you just know you want something better, and I wanted to move away.
So I did get married, to a school teacher–moved away, for an abusive thirteen years of marriage. Then I had a chance, after my divorce, to come back to the farm. The plant I was working for gave an early-out option, so I did. My parents wanted me to come home because my parents and grandmother were sick. So, I went ahead and took the early out, and I came back.
And then, I had to decide what I was going to do with the rest of my life. So I went into nursing. I was 42, and by the grace of God, I finished the test to get into nursing. I was in my first year, and I was then feeling some of the problems of cancer. I knew the signs. I ignored those signs. I had learned them in nursing also when we studied cancer, because I had a lot more things to do. I was so young. And I did ask the doctors, and they all said, “Well, you know, you’re pretty young to have that,” being just past 40. So I just kind of ignored it, as like a hemorrhoid problem.
Falling in Love and Finding Cancer
But while I was in school, this name of Howard came up again. And I sought him out, not ever thinking, that I’d be asked to go out again by him. …read the rest of this entry»

Minnie: surviving breast cancer
My name is Minnie. I live in Mississippi. I’m 69 years old, married and have four children by a previous marriage, one girl and three boys. I have seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I’m a cancer survivor. I had a modified radical mastectomy on the left side November 15, 1999. I was blessed in that I didn’t have to take radiation or chemo, I was just given Novadex and estrogen blocker. The cancer was feeding on estrogen, and I still had my ovaries. I was also taking Premarin and Provera hormone pills. I was on the hormones for fifteen years. I was on Novadex for five years.
You see in February 98 I got a regular mammogram and in September of the same year, they called me in for a repeat on my left. They said it was a cyst, but it hadn’t cleared up. So on October 4, 1999, I went for an annual mammogram and had to repeat it again on the left side. On October 27, 1999, this time they had found a lump and I was sent to a surgeon on the second of November. He gave me a choice of a needle biopsy or a lumpectomy. I chose the lumpectomy, and it proved to be cancerous. Then I had a choice of cutting a little more around the lumpectomy or removing the breast. I chose removing the breast. My doctor told me I did the right thing, because my breast was full of cancer cells. I had the lumpectomy November 11, 1999, and the mastectomy the 15th of November, 1999. I was in the hospital for two more days, the 16th and 17th , and my daughter and her husband was with me, and when I came home, she stayed with me two more days. And I was never left alone. When my husband had to leave, a real good friend, a neighbor, would come and sit with me. She did this for a week.
Finding the strength
When I first found out I was scared. I had just got a new great-granddaughter on the 28th of October. The next day after I had the second mammogram. I was afraid I wouldn’t get to see her grow up. She’s almost eleven months old, now, and I’m doing fine, praise the Lord. …read the rest of this entry»