Mahoning Valley cancer survivors recall struggles, hope

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The doctor says breast cancer.

The patient sits there numb, in shock and disbelief, afraid she’s going to die.

“When I went for that second mammogram, I really wasn’t even thinking there was a problem,” said Annette Camacci of Poland, who was interviewed in October 2007 by The Vindicator and again this month during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

“In years past, I had been called back to have a second mammogram because of dense breast tissue and I had no lump,” she said. “After waiting for them to ‘be sure they had a good picture’ the radiologist came in and started talking carcinoma and biopsy and I went numb. His words were white noise. I walked out of there in a state of shock.”

Camacci was 48.

Brenda M. Rider of Austintown was 37 when, on May 13 (a Friday), 1999, she was diagnosed as being in stage 3 of an aggressive type of breast cancer.

First interviewed by The Vindicator slightly more than 10 years ago in October, Rider had lumpectomy surgery, but her doctor told her a mastectomy would be useless pain and disfigurement because she would die in six months.

“I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I felt angry from time to time,” said Rider, a Youngstown Municipal Court bailiff.

“I’ve had every side effect you can have. My teeth fell out last year, and a couple of times I sneezed my false teeth out,” she said with a laugh.

But, Rider passed the five-year and 10-year benchmarks and remains cancer-free.

“I beat the odds and the prognosis,” she said.

A diagnosis of breast cancer produces a series of emotions that vary in order and severity from woman to woman. Most say that at some time they experience shock, fear and anger, and finally acceptance.

A call to arms comes later.

They decide to help themselves and others battle the disease that has invaded their bodies.

They go to war.

Camacci, 54, was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2005. An employee of Tartan Insurance Agency, she had lumpectomy surgery a month later followed by radiation and then was on the drug Tamoxifen for five years. The medication interferes with the activity of estrogen, which she said fuels the growth of breast-cancer cells.

“I went through the ‘Are-you-kidding-me, not-me’ stage. I was scared, and sad when I had to tell my husband and daughter,” she recalled.

Camacci’s husband, David, is chief financial officer of Aerolite Extrusions Co. in Boardman. Her daughter, Lauren, a graduate of the College of Wooster, is a graduate assistant at Pennsylvania State University.

“As I proceeded through the weeks to biopsy and final diagnosis, and as surgery got closer, fear was my main emotion,” Camacci said. “True relief didn’t come until I found out that my lymph nodes were clean and I didn’t need chemo. I shed many tears through all those emotions, but I never got angry and I tried to never ask ‘Why me?’”

Camacci and Rider have turned their gratitude for survival into community service with an emphasis on breast cancer.

Camacci has been chairwoman several times of the annual Youngstown Junior League Pink Ribbon Tea for cancer survivors. She is co-chairwoman of survivor activities for the Boardman Relay for Life and participates in other American Cancer Society events, including the Cattle Baron’s Ball fundraiser and the Susan B. Komen for a Cure organization. She also volunteers at her church, Holy Name in Poland.

“Sometimes I feel like I cheated cancer when I see what others go through,” Camacci said. “I feel it touched me to become more aware of cancer and to pay it forward by doing what I can do.”

Rider, a former Austintown policewoman and owner of the former Glorious Homes business, founded the Away With Words Foundation, which helps with the needs of cancer patients going through treatment, and the ROCcK (Raising Our Commitment to Cancer Kids) Choir composed of children ages 3 to 17 who are cancer survivors or siblings of those touched by cancer.

She also started Think Pink Day on Wednesdays during October at Youngstown City Hall. Employees wear pink and containers are placed for employees and City Hall visitors to donate to cancer organizations.

Camacci and Rider and other survivors also give hope to newly diagnosed cancer patients, such as Colleen Wasilchak of Youngstown, that they haven’t received a death sentence.

Wasilchak, 59, who was diagnosed on Valentine’s Day this year, recently finished chemotherapy at St. Joseph Cancer Center in Warren and is preparing to begin radiation treatments.

She said chemotherapy was a “very trying experience.” Her side effects included nausea, leg pain and neuropathy in her feet, which she still has. She said a mastectomy is likely in her future.

Wasilchak, who practices self-examination but admitted she hadn’t had a mammogram for about five years, found a lump in her left breast.

Her husband, Henry “Hank,” a former Delphi Packard Electric supervisor and a 1970 graduate of Joseph Badger High School in Kinsman, said his greatest fears were the treatments his wife would have to go through and knowing that cancer was her biggest health concern.

Her father died of prostate cancer 25 years ago; her brother, Richard Baltes of Canfield has brain and bone cancer; and her daughter, Stacy Koontz of Dallas, recently found a lump in her breast, but has not been diagnosed.

Her mother, Dorothy Baltes, lives in Youngstown, as does her sister, Laurie Scofinsky, and daughter, Jennipher Carter. She also has a brother, Thomas Baltes in Minnesota, and two grandchildren.

Waslichak agrees with Camacci and Rider that having cancer makes you appreciate life more and not put off doing things.

“My family told me I need to relax. But I said I’m not dying. I’ve got a second chance. God has been very good to me, and it’s time to be grateful for what I have,” she said. “I want to get very active with my children and grandchildren.”

One other thing she and her husband want to do is revive their act, “Sweet Dreams,” performing former country singer Patsy Cline numbers.

Once, when they lived in Florida, a man in the audience said loudly enough for Waslichak to hear that he thought she was lip-syncing, not really singing.

So they invited him up on stage and she sat on his lap and sang “Crazy,” one of Cline’s biggest hits.

“The guy was embarrassed, but he said if he didn’t know Patsy was dead, he would have sworn it was her singing,” Waslichak said with a big smile.