STYLE Media and Design

When sculptor Julie Jones got the call to come back in after her routine mammogram, she wasn’t all that concerned. With a history of breast calcifications, she’d been called back many times before. She knew the drill. The technician would perform another mammogram and then the radiologist would tell her the results. But this time it was different. This time they led her into a dimly lit room filled with books on breast cancer. The thought of cancer had not even crossed her mind, but suddenly Julie had the feeling she was in for a nasty surprise. “My first thought was, this isn’t good,” Julie explains. “Then when both the doctor and the nurse came back into the room I fell apart. I had five kids to take care of. I didn’t have time to be sick.”

But the results didn’t really leave any room for doubt. On the image there were clear striations between the calcium deposits. Julie had cancer. Biopsies soon followed. The diagnosis was intraductal carcinoma. “I was an emotional mess,” shares Julie. “I woke up for quite a while with wet pillows every morning. A lot of times I didn’t know what I was upset about. I just started crying.”

Reading everything she could get her hands on, Julie was determined to deal with her cancer swiftly. She had a family to consider. “I think my daughter was really worried,” she says. “At 12, she’s the youngest. I think the boys were in denial. My mom came over and we talked to the kids together.”

“I just remember Julie calling and saying, ‘I’m mad,’” recalls Marilyn Jones, a retired psychologist and Julie’s mom. “We just cried on the telephone together. A week later she said, ‘I’m mad’ and added “I’m going to fight this!’” “I decided I didn’t want to mess around with it,” she says. “I didn’t want to take any chances. I wanted a bilateral mastectomy.”

Unfortunately her surgeon wasn’t convinced that a bilateral mastectomy was necessary. But Julie was steadfast. “We spent an hour and a half discussing the issue. I had always been an athlete. I didn’t want to go through chemotherapy or radiation. With the bilateral, I knew I would be done.”

Less than two months after her diagnosis, Julie was in the operating room. After the surgery, even her surgeon was convinced she’d been right. “He told my parents that I’d made the right choice,” she recalls. “The cancer was more extensive than they realized.”

Later that same year, Julie was in for another nasty surprise. Her mother, Marilyn, would also be diagnosed with breast cancer. “I don’t think Mom told me right away,” Julie laments. “I think she told me only after she had her biopsy.” “She had enough to deal with,” Marilyn says defending her actions.

Like her daughter before her, Marilyn was called back in for another mammogram, and then a biopsy. “The radiologist told me right then it was cancer. I had expected it to take a day or two.”

Unlike Julie, Marilyn knew exactly how to handle the situation. “I had gone to all of Julie’s appointments and went through the decision-making process with her,” explains Marilyn. “I knew what she had been through and I thought, ‘I can do this. I can do this really well.’ I was in Stage I and it was really early. All the indicators were that I would have a good outcome.”

And unlike her daughter, Marilyn did not elect to have a double mastectomy or even a single mastectomy, but instead opted for a lumpectomy. “So I had outpatient surgery to remove the tumor. The surgeon removed a piece the size ‘of between a golf ball and a tennis ball.’ Then I had a short course of radiation following it.”

Unfortunately, both Julie and Marilyn were in for a third nasty surprise that same year. Marilyn’s mother, Mary Frances Blankenhorn, was also diagnosed with breast cancer. “Even before I had my surgery, Mom told me she found a lump and was going to the doctor,” says Marilyn. “She lives in Arizona on a managed health plan. She found out it was cancer after my surgery.”

Mary Frances was the only one not caught by surprise. “I was only surprised that I was 89 before I was diagnosed with cancer. I was not surprised that it was malignant; cancer runs in my family.”

Julie and Marilyn wanted to be with Mary Frances to support her through her course of treatment, but because of their own diagnoses, they could not go to her. But for Mary Frances, the hardest part about the distance wasn’t that her family wasn’t there to support her, it was that she couldn’t be here, in Colorado, to support them. “I live in an RV park, and several of my friends have had cancer,” Mary Frances explains. “In fact, one of my good friends had a mastectomy a week before I did. Another good friend had a mastectomy several years ago and she was very supportive. But I’m afraid I wasn’t much help with my daughter and granddaughter.”

Slapped with three nasty surprises in one year was challenging for the women of this family. But along the way, there were some pleasant surprises as well. “I was just amazed at how much help there is out there in the community – how many resources there are like Hope Lives! and the Komen Foundation. And PVH has a patient navigator program that helps you find all the resources that are available to you. That’s just made a huge difference,” says Julie.

Another hidden surprise was the opportunity the diagnoses gave them to share their knowledge, and perhaps even prevent cancer, in future generations. Although the three do not share the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes associated with breast cancer, as Mary Frances so astutely pointed out, cancer is pervasive throughout the family tree. “The doctors told us that the biggest person at risk is my daughter,” said Julie, but the boys could be at risk too. “We’ve had a lot of pretty open dialogues.”

And their experience has also helped others in the community. “When Mom and I did the sculpture show a few weeks ago, there was a fellow sculptor there who said, ‘You’ve changed me forever.’ I tell my friends, get a mammogram because by the time you find a lump . . .” Her voice trails off. She knows she was lucky. Her mother was lucky. Her grandmother was lucky. They found their cancer in time. But you can’t always count on luck. Prevention is the key.

In the end, the best surprise of all is that Julie and her family have also found lasting value in their experiences. Julie sums it up this way: “My first thought is that trials are actually a manifestation of our Heavenly Father’s love for us; when we endure trials, we learn and grow and even find joy. In the past three years, I have begun looking at challenges as opportunities rather than a punishment. I ask myself, ‘What am I supposed to learn here?’ The other thought that I contemplate all the time is ‘Who ever said that life is for smooth sailing?’ It has been when I am sick that I most appreciate feeling well. It has been when I have fasted, that I appreciate the blessings of nourishment. It has been when I have contemplated not living that I most appreciate life and all that I have been blessed with."