Surviving Breast Cancer, Embracing Life

The following is an Editorial Resource from YourTotalHealth.

Why Spend Today Worrying?

Kelley Tuthill, 38
Years since diagnosis: 1

It’s a clogged milk duct. It has to be. That was Kelley Tuthill’s first thought. After all, she’d stopped nursing her second child only six weeks earlier. She was 36 years old and had never even had a mammogram. She was too young. Besides, breast cancer didn’t run in her family.

But the lump was undeniable. It was there, in her right breast, and it wasn’t going away. Even her doctor thought it was probably a clogged duct but sent Tuthill for further tests anyway. On December 22, 2006, she had her first mammogram and an ultrasound—and was diagnosed with cancer. “I couldn’t have been more shocked,” says Tuthill, now 38, a TV reporter in Boston. “This wasn’t anything I was expecting at this stage of my life, with two young children.”

Boxing cancer
In January 2007, Tuthill had a mastectomy with breast reconstruction. It turns out her three tumors were triple positive—meaning they were positive for estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and the HER-2 oncogene. “What that means from the treatment perspective is: I got the full Monty,” she says. “I’m not sure how you could get more treatment than I did.” Beginning two weeks after the surgery, she had extensive chemotherapy and radiation and is still taking tamoxifen daily. “The hardest part of the recovery for me,” says Tuthill, “was that I couldn’t lift anything heavy for six weeks—like my baby! I had to have other people with me all the time, which was hard. I felt like half a mom.”

Of course, the treatment itself was grueling, too, and Tuthill continued working all the way through it, wearing a wig once her hair fell out from the chemotherapy. “I really liken last year to a really long boxing match,” she says. “The first punch was the diagnosis—I was so shocked; that was nearly the knockout punch. Round two was the mastectomy with TRAM reconstruction. Rounds three and four were the first and second courses of chemotherapy, followed by radiation in round five. Throughout all this, I felt really tired, really wiped out, like I just kept taking the punches. Just when I thought I couldn’t take more, another hit would come my way. It wasn’t easy to take care of two little kids when you don’t feel well."

One Year Later
"I’m still standing and doing my part—working hard to eat right and exercise—to make sure I never have to face this opponent again.”

Throughout the treatment, Tuthill tried valiantly to keep her spirits up and managed the best she could at home and work, with the assistance of her family and friends. One strategy that helped was having a different friend stay with her during each two- to three-hour treatment. “As a mom with young kids, I never get to see my friends,” Tuthill says. “To have my friends there, it kept me away from focusing on what was happening to me and that was really helpful.” Doing yoga before the treatments and walking regularly also helped her stay calm and keep her mind clear.

Tuthill’s TV reporting career made her battle with breast cancer public. She did an on-air project about her battle with cancer and began to feel a deeper personal connection with viewers. “So many people’s lives are affected by cancer, and I ask people to open their hearts and doors to me every day. I thought my story could help other people,” says Tuthill, who also wrote about her experience for the station’s Web site (read her diary entries). “Being in the public eye, I got advice from a lot of different people—about watching light movies, reading entertaining books, spending time around people who make you feel good and distract you in a good way—and I took it,” she admits.

“A year ago, I wondered when I would stop worrying about abandoning my kids, about their having to grow up without a mom,” she confesses. “As I get further away from the treatment, that gets easier every day. The way I look at it is, I had cancer in my body, they did chemotherapy and radiation to get rid of it and I have to believe it’s gone. Why would I want to spend time today worrying about what may or may not happen down the road?”

By: Stacey Colino

What's Next: "I'm Lucky to Be Here"

• The 2nd Time Around
• A Funny Kind of Strength
• 10 Years Later