For Elizabeth Bynum, a former telephone operator who has since dabbled in drag racing, breast exams had become fairly routine.
That did not make them any less frightening.
“I have fibrocystic breasts, which means they are lumpy,” Bynum said recently. “I’ve found lumps in my right breast many times, and there’s never been anything wrong.”
During her yearly mammogram on June 1 (”Every man should have a mammogram, so they can know what it’s like,” Bynum mumbled in passing), doctors found an irregularity.
“They said I had to have a needle biopsy on June 15,” said Bynum, 58.
But it was to be done on her left breast. Calcifications had been found, early indicators of a possible precancerous condition.
On June 24, she got a phone call.
“The doctor asked me to come in. I said, ‘I have cancer, don’t I?’ He said, ‘Just come in. I want to talk to you.’ And I said again, ‘I have cancer, don’t I?’”
Months before the diagnosis, Bynum said, she had watched her cousin die of colon cancer, so her own view of the situation was immediately grim. Cancer was in her family, her mother having died of pancreatic cancer and two cousins both having battled breast cancer. One had been successful.
“She just finished her 10th year off of tamoxifen (estrogen blocker),” she sai. “So she’s a cancer survivor.”
Bynum’s doctor made it clear that, because the area was small, with a lumpectomy and radiation, she had a 95 percent chance of survival.
“I told him, ‘I want better than that!’” Bynum said. “I didn’t want to die. I was scared, very scared. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I have a grandson, and I wanted to be around to see him grow up.”
Her doctor’s caring attitude and reassurances eventually allayed Bynum’s fears.
“He gave me hope, and I decided that, from everything I’d ever heard about cancer, the only way you can beat cancer is with your attitude.”
Bynum’s treatment began with surgery for a lumpectomy. Next, the mammocite regime, an internal, 5-day therapy that targets tumor sites.
“That was not comfortable,” she said bluntly. “They had a catheter hanging out of it to hook up to the machine. That wasn’t comfortable, but it beats having seven weeks of radiation.
“I would sign in, and they would take me back to have the CAT scan before each treatment, and then they would assign me a time to go back in the afternoon to have another CAT scan and another treatment.”
What was the worst part of her treatment?
“The treatment was not bad at all,” she said, chuckling. “The bad part for me was the early mornings. I’m a night person.”
In the few months since then, Bynum said, her life has changed somewhat. She has learned about her own inner strength (”I’m a tough old broad”) and the support of her family, especially her husband, Larry, and a favorite counsin, Susie Schenider.
“She was there with me when I had my surgery. She’s also the one who got me through my mother’s death. ... She’s my rock.”
Her diet even includes more fruits and vegetables, up to a point.
“I’m eating better than I used to,” Bynum said, laughing. “Of course, nothing is going to keep me from the occasional meal at Taco Bell.”
And even though she battles occasional guilt, over her seemingly easy journey through the disease that has taken so many others, Bynum battles just as much to keep her humor.
“I have to see my doctor on Jan. 14, the day after my birthday,” Bynum said. “And I have orders from her office to bring cake.”
Special Reports
The patient's side of cancer diagnosis
Calcifications provided Elizabeth Bynum an early indicator
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ACS dominates local headlines in 2010
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