Photo By 94th Airlift Wing | Shannon takes a photo with her oldest son Lucas, left, husband, U.S. Air Force Staff...... read more read more
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“I was in shock and couldn’t speak, but I felt tears streaming down my face. Everything went very numb for me and all I thought about was dying.”
This is how Shannon Spalding, a Dyess spouse and Family Child Care provider, describes her initial reaction on March 3, 2010, after her doctor told her she had stage 1 triple negative breast cancer at the age of 24.
It is no surprise that this time every year people get caught up in making doctor appointments for mammograms and reading statistics, we often forget about the actual flesh who has suffered through this horrible disease. A month of pink advertisement and merchandise being seen everywhere for one person is another 30 days that someone else is fighting for their life.
“I was in complete shock upon hearing her diagnosis and felt as though I was about to lose my best friend, who I had loved for most of my life,” said Staff Sgt. Christopher Spalding, 7th Component Maintenance Squadron aerospace propulsion craftsman and Shannon’s husband. “It was at that moment I realized just how much I loved her. I couldn’t picture my life without her, and I knew I didn’t want to ever again.”
Breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women and 1 in 1,000 men, and one of the easiest detection techniques are self-examinations. Shannon would perform routine self-examinations and that is when she felt a lump on her breast while on Christmas vacation in 2009. Plenty of people may perform these examinations, but may not know the next step to take when a lump, or abnormality, is felt.
“After feeling a lump, I called my primary doctor, and the ultrasound they completed determined I needed a biopsy as well,” Shannon said. “Two weeks later, I had an appointment with a specialist who told me I had cancer. My sister found the top surgeon in Florida, who told me I had a very rare and aggressive type of cancer, so they rushed to get the curing process started.”
On March 30, 2010, a piece of Shannon’s womanhood was taken after she had a double mastectomy with lymph node removal. This is where both breasts are removed, as well as, tissue around the armpit to prevent the cancer from spreading. If that wasn’t enough to cope with, she was then given only five weeks to recover and move past the surgery before starting her first eight-hour chemotherapy session.
“I felt a part of what made me a woman was being taken away from me, and I still view it that way today,” Shannon said.
Although she did receive reconstructive surgery, it was not enough to overlook the eight months of aggressive chemotherapy, which took a tremendous toll on her body. Shannon struggled with losing her hair, nausea, body pain, countless sleepless nights, numbness in her fingers and toes and ‘chemo brain’.
Post-chemotherapy cognitive impairment or ‘chemo brain’ is a term used by patients and doctors to describe the thinking and memory impairments that occur during, and after, chemotherapy. Patients forget names, dates and events, have trouble concentrating and are not able to multi-task, their thinking process is slower and sometimes have issues finishing a sentence because they forget words. This is a challenging side-effect, as are the physical changes patients see everyday they look in the mirror.
“I cut my hair short in the beginning, but by the second week it was falling out in chunks,” Shannon said. “It was very traumatizing for me, so my family decided to shave my head. I spent an hour behind closed doors afterwards, crying at the reality.”
Shannon was put on two steroids and Neulasta, a white blood cell stimulant, in order for her to be able to withstand what the chemicals were doing to her body. The treatment is designed to kill growing cancer cells, but it also harms perfectly healthy cells in the process. The chemotherapy burned her taste buds, known as acid-mouth, reduced her appetite, and caused her to throw up blood, which left her with no strength. These episodes would be so painful they caused her to blackout. The Neulasta shot, which was given after her four-hour chemotherapy sessions, made it impossible for her to walk or sleep without wincing in pain.
“My bones felt like they were being crushed within my body, and the slightest touch on my skin felt like I was being lit on fire,” Shannon explained. “My mother would try to hug me, and I would just cry in pain.”
Chemotherapy put her into an early menopause, and she was also prescribed medication to help decrease her heart rate and regulate her breathing whenever she was overwhelmed or stressed.
“I had horrible night sweats, sleep was impossible, my body pains were constant and if I wore a wig the sweat would create blisters. My husband would lift my wig and blow cool air on my head to help cool me down,” Shannon said. “I immediately wanted to give up because it was such a large toll on my body physically and mentally. Chemo can take your life if your body and mind are not prepared to handle it.”
Although Shannon was the patient suffering physically and constantly fighting for her life, her diagnosis and crippling demeanor affected everyone close to her.
“I was a wreck; watching my favorite person being pumped full of poison for the sake of saving her life was heartbreaking,” Spalding said. “She looked like she was in pain immediately upon the nurse sticking her with the needle to administer the chemo, but she would never talk about it. It was devastating seeing her hooked up to that machine for hours, and it was an intense feeling of helplessness.”
Not only did Shannon receive support from her family, she was also placed on the Air Force Exceptional Family Member Program to ensure all of her medical needs to include medication, check-ups and any other support is available to her at all times. This sickness altered her life drastically, and even though she is cancer-free today, for the rest of her life she will need specific medical attention and support.
When others are finally over their sickness they usually go out with friends, go out of town or just go outside to get fresh air. For Shannon, it was a second chance at life. When she got the news, Sept. 30, 2010, that she was done with treatment she felt a sense of relief. She spent the day with her family enjoying a big dinner and great company.
She has to be seen every six months to ensure her cancer cells have not come back.
“I always prepare for the worst, but I hope for the best,” Spalding said. “I’m usually a wreck on the inside, but I have to be her rock and be strong in case we get bad news. Thankfully, we’ve been blessed with her clean bill of health. She was, and is, the toughest person I know.”
In the beginning, doctors told Shannon she would not be able to have children due to her aggressive chemotherapy. Her only alternative was to freeze her eggs, before treatment started. This procedure is $10,000 a set and not covered by insurance. At the time, this was not an option for Shannon and her husband.
As life would have it though, Shannon and her husband defied the odds, again, and now have two healthy boys, Lucas and Logan.
“I was very scared during the first pregnancy that I wouldn’t be able to carry my son full term because of getting sick again, and the doctors were worried as well,” Shannon said. I am so blessed to be the mother of two absolutely beautiful and loving boys. They are my everything, and I have to ensure I am well for them.”
Cancer is never fully cured, just a dormant threat which could return, but patients can refer to themselves as cancer survivors after five years of being cured. Shannon has now been cancer-free for six years and celebrated her fifth year with a tattoo that reads “alive” on her arm right above the scar from her chemotherapy port. The scar is a constant reminder of the pain and death that tormented her body, but her tattoo is a greater reminder of her strength and a new life.
“You have to fight as hard as you can, and find support in your family, spouse, friends and treatment facilities. This is not something you can get through alone, you need someone by your side,” Shannon said. “I wanted to give up so many times to stop the pain, but with the support I had from my family and my husband who stood by my side to see me through it, here I am.”
| Date Taken: | 12.20.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 12.20.2016 14:10 |
| Story ID: | 218241 |
| Location: | DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 314 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Surviving the curing poison: A spouse’s true story of courage, by SrA Shannon Hall, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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