Reflection on a Journey: Denise’s Story Part 2

We first brought you Denise Poland’s sto­ry in Feb­ru­ary. You can read that sto­ry here. At that time she was just months into her treat­ment for breast can­cer. With Octo­ber being Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Month, we want­ed to check in on her and her journey.

In August of this year, Denise Poland and her hus­band head­ed out to Col­orado. This trip was more than a vaca­tion, it was one of heal­ing. Just a year before, also in August, Poland accom­plished a long-time goal to climb Longs Peak, a 14,259 ft. mountain.

“When we got to Col­orado we drove by the moun­tain we had climbed [Longs Peak], and it was very emo­tion­al, but I need­ed to do it. That just seems like a life­time ago, but it was only a year,” she said.

This time she didn’t sum­mit Longs Peak, but she did take on small­er hikes of four to five hours in length. Poland and her fam­i­ly are hik­ers and enjoy adven­ture. Although this year’s hikes were much dif­fer­ent, hik­ing is some­thing she said she need­ed to do.

“Cathar­tic is the word I would use to describe it,” she shared. ​“It was com­fort­ing to know I still can do it, and that can­cer did not take every­thing from me. It was hum­bling at the same time.”

For just over a year, Poland has been in the care of QMG Oncol­o­gist Dr. Ray­mond Smith and team at the QMG Can­cer Insti­tute. She’s near­ing the end of her chemother­a­py treat­ments and expects to fin­ish at the end of Novem­ber or ear­ly Decem­ber — a mile­stone in her journey.

Through­out this time, she’s real­ized how mean­ing­ful the QMG Can­cer Insti­tute has been to her. The care she gets extends beyond her phys­i­cal health. The emo­tion­al sup­port has become just as impor­tant. Hav­ing that sup­port close to home gave her anx­i­ety about tak­ing this lat­est trip to Colorado.

“I think I may have expe­ri­enced a pan­ic attack, but I’m not sure. There was no offi­cial diag­no­sis of it. I couldn’t get my emo­tions under con­trol. I went in and spoke with an oncol­o­gy nurse,” she shared. ​“I real­ized it was because we were going on vaca­tion and I was going to be away from all of the sup­port from the doc­tors and team. We were going to an area in Col­orado where we weren’t going to have good cell phone ser­vice. I was get­ting myself worked up about ​‘What am I going to do?’ kind of thing. I had lived with the com­fort of being a half a mile away from QMG, where I can pick up the phone and be seen right away. But we worked through it, and they put me at ease.”

Anoth­er source of sup­port has been Can­cer Con­nect, a sup­port group spon­sored by the QMG Can­cer Insti­tute and QMG Foun­da­tion for all of those touched by can­cer — patients, care­tak­ers, fam­i­lies, and friends.

“It’s fan­tas­tic. I love it! I’ve made some won­der­ful rela­tion­ships there. I would encour­age peo­ple to go. You don’t have to go to every ses­sion; you can drop by every so often and that’s ok,” she said.

Since her breast can­cer diag­no­sis, Poland often shares the impor­tance of screen­ings and rou­tine check-ups with those around her.

“In our fam­i­ly we have a say­ing, ​‘You don’t have to — you get to.’ Get­ting a mam­mo­gram is a life thing that you don’t have to do — you get to do it! It’s a must do — not a choice. If I hadn’t gone to my year­ly exam and done my self-breast exam, this wouldn’t have been caught in quite a while,” she said.

Look­ing back on this last year, she does so with opti­mism, the same opti­mism that she’s held on to through­out her jour­ney, along with her faith. As she nears the end of her chemother­a­py treat­ment course, she feels hope­ful. Now her focus will turn to the phys­i­cal and men­tal recovery.

“I’m so for­tu­nate. Life is good. We’re get­ting back on track…day-by day and prayer-by-prayer.”