Iolan fights to survive the ‘Big C’
It goes against the free natures of Jackie and Robert Hutton to be tethered to routine.
But since her diagnosis in 2001 with breast cancer, the two are pretty much at the mercy of doctor’s appointments, tests, surgeries — and fear.
“It controls you,” said Robert of the “Big C.”
“It’s pretty hard to make plans.”
IT ALL STARTED innocently enough.
“I was blow drying my hair one morning and noticed the skin around a nipple was puckered funny,” said Jackie. Tests showed she had Stage 2 breast cancer. She’s the first in her family to contract the disease.
Jackie, now 52, took an aggressive approach to the cancer, opting for a bilateral mastectomy followed by six months of chemotherapy and then 30 radiation treatments.
That bought her some time.
“Eight years,” she said. “Though the whole time I’d find myself thinking when, where and how the cancer would return. With breast cancer it’s not if the cancer will return; it’s when.”
In December 2008, the cancer returned with a vengeance. Today she has cancer in her bones, chest wall and right adrenal gland.
Her most recent hospital stay was a 10-day stint at Menorah Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., where she had a procedure that allows built-up fluid to continuously drain from around her heart. She came home July 5.
On Wednesday, Jackie was feeling pretty perky, enough so that she was looking forward to an afternoon swim with her grandchildren.
Some days, however, she fights exhaustion and loss of appetite. The fluid buildup around her heart made it difficult to breathe. “The extra fluid makes your heart have to work harder,” she said. She often sleeps hooked up to oxygen, “when my blood pressure drops too low,” she said.
She’s also down to 95 pounds; a loss of 35 pounds over the past several months. “I eat. I guess just not enough.”
The chemotherapy has changed her taste buds. Whereas she once enjoyed meat and other hearty meals, today she favors salad, fruit and vegetables.
She noted fellow co-worker Patti Haen keeps her stocked with homemade ice cream and an occasional cherry pie.
“She’s a sweetie,” she said.
Since 1982, Jackie has worked as a Licensed Practical Nurse for The Family Physicians. She attended Mary Grimes School of Nursing at Neosho Community College in Chanute, graduating in 1977.
She occasionally does work for the practice from her home.
“I miss them bad,” she said of her coworkers.
Her nursing background has worked against Jackie being a model patient. “Oh, I’m the worst,” she said.
Her husband gives his two cents. “She second-guesses things. She knows too much, but not enough.”
CANCER HAS changed Jackie’s priorities.
“I no longer sweat the small stuff,” she said. At the same time, she’s pretty much checked out from life at large. The U.S. debt crisis — not on her radar.
“It pretty much takes all my energy to focus on beating this cancer,” she said, which follows the routine of bracing for upcoming treatments; enduring them and then recovering from the potent medicines.
Almost in her third year of her second bout with the Big C, Jackie said she doesn’t ask her doctor, oncologist Sukumar Ethirajan, about her prognosis.
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll live. I don’t want to know,” she said. “I have however many days God wants me to have.”
Several things keep her life worth living.
First is Robert, her husband of 35 years.
“He’s my support,” said Jackie simply.
Both Jackie and Robert are native Iolans. They have three sons and seven grandchildren, “with one another on the way,” Jackie said.
Robert is semi-retired from the oil production business MAE Resources, based in Parker, which serves Southeast Kansas.
His position as a partner with the business allows flexibility. He drives Jackie to all of her appointments in Kansas City, including one five-week stint where she received treatment five days a week.
She has a port implanted in her chest for access to the intravenous drugs that flow through her veins.
Also splayed across her chest is a colorful tattoo.
Jackie explained the artwork.
“At the last moment I backed out of getting breast reconstruction,” she said of the elective surgery after her double mastectomy. “So I got the tattoos instead.”
JACKIE WILL participate in the kickoff survivor’s lap of Friday night’s Relay for Cancer walk and perhaps linger now that the walk will be held inside the air-conditioned environs of the gymnasium of the Recreation Community Building in Riverside Park.
She’s a big fan of the event and its efforts to raise money for cancer research.
“I won’t kid you, this stuff is scary,” she said. “I take one day at a time. Grateful for each and every one.”
