A Mountain of Blessings: Denise’s Story

Denise Poland and her fam­i­ly are hik­ers, often mak­ing trips to Col­orado to ful­fill their pas­sion. In August 2021, her son and she accom­plished their goal of climb­ing Longs Peak, a 14,259 ft. moun­tain. At the time, she had no idea there was a major chal­lenge to come next.

“It was a long-time goal of mine to sum­mit Longs Peak,” she said. ​“Sum­mit­ing the moun­tain was more about the inter­nal jour­ney, chal­lenges, and bat­tles with­in myself to con­quer the moun­tain. The sum­mit was reached. Life was good.”

A cou­ple weeks after she arrived back home to Quin­cy, Denise would face the climb of her life. She decid­ed to do a self-breast exam, some­thing she tries to do at least every oth­er month, if not month­ly. She dis­cov­ered something.

“I’m just com­ing back from this won­der­ful time in Col­orado, and I found these two small lumps myself,” she shared. ​“After speak­ing with my school nurse, she said you’re going to want to call your OB/GYN.”

She did just that, reach­ing out to Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) Gyne­col­o­gist Dr. Peter Dures­ka, who got her in right away.

“Quin­cy Med­ical Group has been fan­tas­tic. I can­not say enough pos­i­tive things. They got me right in. Every­thing was done very swift­ly,” she said.

After a biop­sy, Denise received a call a cou­ple days lat­er from Dr. Dures­ka, who gave her and her hus­band the diag­no­sis — inva­sive duc­tal car­ci­no­ma, a form of breast can­cer. Short­ly after her diag­no­sis she met with QMG Gen­er­al Sur­geon Dr. Chris­t­ian Zwick and QMG Med­ical Oncol­o­gist Dr. Ray­mond Smith to talk about her treat­ment plan.

“I have no mark­ers for it, I have no rea­son to even have this in my life, but we are faith-based peo­ple,” Denise said. ​“We tru­ly believe that God placed us on this path for His pur­pose. We have not ques­tioned ​‘Why us?’ at all. We just feel there’s a rea­son that we don’t know yet.”

That jour­ney has brought many unex­pect­ed bless­ings, which have been uplift­ing for her along her journey.

“Every day I’m in awe of the bless­ings and answered prayers we haven’t even asked for. Bless­ings are hap­pen­ing that I didn’t even pray for. There are just these things that might seem small to oth­er peo­ple that are so incred­i­bly mean­ing­ful,” she said.

Denise is a school social work­er at Thomas S. Bald­win School in Quin­cy. She explained that she want­ed to work part time for years, but the oppor­tu­ni­ty nev­er pre­sent­ed itself. This year, she was able to work part-time. She said she believes God was prepar­ing the path for me her to have the time need­ed for this journey.

“My fam­i­ly and friends have gone beyond the word ​‘friend­ship’ and check on me week­ly and pray unceas­ing­ly — all with pure love. My hus­band shaved my hair off, holds my hand while I ​‘ugly cry,’ makes sure I eat, and allows me to move through this jour­ney with­out judg­ment,” she shared. ​“Our old­est son is a pho­tog­ra­ph­er who did a can­cer pho­to ses­sion with me. This expe­ri­ence will be one of the most mean­ing­ful of this jour­ney. Our youngest son has been able to be home for a few months. He has shopped, cooked, cleaned, attend­ed appoint­ments, and freely giv­en of him­self to be supportive.”

Her job too has been a bless­ing. Both her cowork­ers and stu­dents give her added strength and joy.

“As the School Social Work­er at Thomas S. Bald­win, I get to be around kids who give uncon­di­tion­al love and staff who treat me like Denise and not ​‘Denise with can­cer,’” she shared.

One of her stu­dents gives her a dai­ly hair report tak­ing a light­heart­ed view of the hair she’s lost due to can­cer treatment.

“He lifts the cor­ner of my hat and will say, ​‘Oh, no hair today,’ kind of like a snow report. ​‘She’ll have hair com­ing in April,’” Denise said with a laugh. ​“Just joy like that is so uplifting.”

Denise has one more round of chemother­a­py, then she’ll be sched­uled for surgery fol­lowed by radi­a­tion. She’ll con­tin­ue HER2 injec­tions through October.

The com­mu­ni­ty of sup­port she has formed at QMG has also helped Denise. She has leaned on her doc­tors and the nurs­es through it all. The small things that they have done have made a big dif­fer­ence for her.

”The oth­er day I want­ed hot choco­late and they didn’t have any. Pret­ty soon one of the nurs­es comes back with hot choco­late. She ran around to the oth­er depart­ments to find me some. Who does that? It’s been an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence for us,” she said.

For all women every­where, she asks of them to per­form fre­quent self-breast exams.