An unexpected journey Posted On: Monday, Oct. 19 2009 02:22 AM By Rebecca Hertz
Killeen Daily Herald

From the initial concern that something might be wrong to actually hearing the feared diagnosis, breast cancer takes women on a journey they prayed they would never have to travel.

Navigating through acceptance and treatment and being forced to confront one's own mortality can present life in a different perspective. Some evolve into stronger, more determined women, but all will be forever changed by the experience.

Linda Chupik, who operates a counseling service in Killeen, emits confidence and compassion. You would never imagine her life was touched by breast cancer.

Overdue checkup

She said she had never been sick in her life, so hearing the breast cancer diagnosis in 1997 was devastating. There was no family history of the disease, and she had never known anyone who had cancer.

"When I got the diagnosis, I remember thinking, 'Oh, I am going to die,'" she said. "I wasn't going to see him (my son) get through college and get married or any of that.'"

Chupik said she was six months overdue for her mammogram. Having always been a stay-at-home mother and homemaker, she was in the process of opening a private counseling practice, starting a new phase in her life. She is a licensed marriage and family counselor.

"When it (the mammogram) came due, I was busy," she said. "Who knows, if I had done it on time, maybe it would have all been OK."

After the initial diagnosis, Chupik said she cried all the way home in disbelief. Then she slipped into a phase of denial and went to two other doctors for opinions. But it was the same diagnosis each time. It was cancer and it needed to be removed.

"Finally, the third doctor said, 'Linda, you have cancer, you have to do something,'" she said.

Then she faced the decision of having a lumpectomy or a mastectomy. She ended up having a lumpectomy and had three breast surgeries followed by chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

'If I had to do it all over'

"If I had to do it all over again, I would have had a mastectomy and not a lumpectomy," she said. "I would have had a double, bilateral and gotten rid of it all. Now 12 years later, I think why didn't I just get rid of it all?"

Chupik said her husband was the best caregiver she could have ever had.

"This is a family disease. It affects everybody, and it certainly affected my husband," she said. "He just seemed to know when to make me laugh and when to say shape up and when to hold me. I am so grateful to him."

Early in her first round of chemo, Chupik's husband took her on a shopping trip to find a dress for a formal event they had to attend. She said it wasn't his practice to come along on shopping excursions and he did it to help raise her spirits. She found a very expensive "drop-dead, gorgeous dress."

'A classic'

Chupik said she will never forget her husband's words when she walked out in the dress: "Isn't that what you would call a classic? One you would wear a long time?" She smiled because it was probably a tactic she had used on him in the past to justify a purchase.

Her husband was going to buy her this really expensive dress that she was sure she wasn't going to wear very much because he believed she would be wearing it for years.

"It was him saying you're going to wear that dress for a long time that really kicked in a lot of hope for me," Chupik said.

She became more aware of hope all around her. The people who cared for her never allowed her to lose that hope. Chupik said that caregivers can't be honored enough.

"When I went for my surgery and my chemo and stuff, it wasn't all doom and gloom," she said. "Yes, I have a serious disease, but I have good people working on me and it is going to be OK. I am just going to take one day at a time."

She is appreciative every day that after 12 years her cancer hasn't come back. There have been a couple of scares, but everything turned out OK.

"I guess like everybody, I still have days where I can go into a tirade about my hair or weight I've gained. But then I can say my cancer hasn't come back, who cares about my hair?" she said. "I believe it made me much more grateful and much more aware of how precious every day is."

Don't delay

What helped her through the ordeal was moving forward to open her practice. It gave her a reason not to obsess and dwell on her illness. She advises other women to resume normal activities as soon as possible and not sit around thinking about the disease.

"Don't delay a mammogram, and jump in there with your treatment and you can do it," she said. "Find a support system whether it is your best friend, someone who has been there, spouse, parents, whoever it is."

Contact Rebecca Hertz at rhert@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7469.