Lisa Shannon
"When
you hear a doctor say that you have cancer, it's like all
the oxygen goes out of the room. Your head is spinning and
you don't remember anything they say after that," said
Anderson resident Lisa Shannon.
Shannon was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer June 1.
Four weeks before she was diagnosed, her fiancé‚ Brent,
passed away unexpectedly. "I was pretty much an emotional
mess when I went to the doctor that morning and heard that I
have cancer," she said.
At age 54, Shannon had never had a mammogram. "I changed
doctors about four months ago, and when that new doctor
found out that I have never had a mammogram, he called me
out quick!"
Shannon's new doctor would not see her until she agreed to
take the test. The results showed a pea-sized lump in her
breast. "So now I'm a big spokesperson for mammograms. If it
had not been for the mammogram, the tumor would have just
kept growing and growing and I wouldn't have had any idea."
Shannon was the first patient to try five-day MammoSite
radiation at Saint John's Cancer Center. She chose the
treatment mostly for its speed of treatment over the
standard seven weeks associated with external beam
radiation. Friday, June 29 was her last day of MammoSite
treatment, and she praised her doctors and overall
experience with the procedure.
"It was so easy to go through," she said. "Even though
you're getting concentrated doses of radiation, since it's
just in that one area, it doesn't affect you like external
radiation does." Though Shannon was fatigued after her
second treatment each day, she said MammoSite caused her no
other side effects.
"The actual treatment is about ten minutes, but you're there
about an hour, because you have to have a CT scan every time
to make sure the balloon hasn't shifted," she explained.
"While the radiation was going on, I would imagine little
scrub ladies scrubbing the cancer out -- or Pac-Man," she
said with laughter. "I would just visualize all kinds of
stuff cleaning me up and getting rid of the cancer."
Family is largely what gives Shannon her optimism and
fighting spirit.
"I have five terrific grandkids, ages 9 through 14. I think
they're one of the reasons I'm so determined to beat this
thing and to keep going. I want to see great-grandkids. I
don't want to check out too soon."
Her strength also comes from prayer and other people praying
for her, she said.
"It has been a little bit harder because I don't have Brent
to lean on. We were kind of each other's rock."
But on the other hand, fighting the cancer has given Shannon
"something to focus on besides how much I miss him."
Shannon said, through this experience, she's finally had to
prove a personal motto she's shared with her children and
grandchildren over the years: "It's not how many times you
get knocked down in life; it's how many times you get back
up."
