Aug. 14, 2016, is a day that Joan Wessell is looking forward to. It will mark the end of five years of taking Arimidex to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurring, an end to the medicine’s painful side effects. It’s also an important milestone to reach as a breast cancer survivor.
“I plan to celebrate,” said Wessell, the director of the Downtown Corvallis Association for the last 20 years.
But in the meantime, she’ll celebrate survivorship as a model on the Pink Carpet runway in October at Puttin’ on the Pink, a gala fundraiser for Project H.E.R., a local program of The Corvallis Clinic Foundation providing awareness, education and support for all women diagnosed with breast cancer.
Each patient’s journey with cancer is unique. Wessell has been strengthened in her journey by family and friends, the Project H.E.R. staff and mentors, as well as the women she met at support group meetings.
An independent and hardworking mother of two adult children, Wessell said it was hardest for her to allow other people to do things for her.
“I am so grateful for my wonderful caring friends,” Wessell said. “I never once worried because I knew I was being prayed for and taken care of.”
An Unexpected Diagnosis
Before she was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer, Wessell said she never worried about having cancer.
She has lived in Corvallis since 1961. She was born in Southwest Washington and grew up in a close-knit family, with an older brother, Sonny and younger sister, Dorothy. When she was 12, they were driving to visit her grandparents in Yakima for Easter when their car was broadsided by a drunk driver. Dorothy, 7, was killed in the crash. The family moved to Newport the following year and she and her brother both graduated from Newport High School.
Two weeks after celebrating his 54th birthday, her brother Sonny, while at work, witnessed a serious accident. Sonny worked feverishly to rescue the victim, single-handedly saving the stranger’s life. But he lost his own after suffering a fatal heart attack due to the stress and exertion. Six years earlier, Wessell’s mother died of a heart attack. And in 2008, her father died following a series of strokes.
So she was focused on eating healthy, exercising and taking care of her heart. During an annual exam in 2010, Wessell’s doctor Jess Hickerson, M.D., asked about her last mammogram.
“For the past nine years I’ve made appointments but canceled them because I got too busy at work,” she admitted.
“I’d like for you to have your mammogram,” Dr. Hickerson said.
“I promise you I will make an appointment before I leave your parking lot,” she said.
Wessell kept her promise and the mammogram results led to a needle biopsy. “It’s not a fun procedure,” she recalled. “I took my iPod, laid on the table and the tech would squeeze my hand. Every time the needle was about to go in, I’d repeat my children’s names. Kevin. Stephanie.”
She left the appointment with a promise that she’d get a call when the results were in. The phone rang on June 8 as she was getting ready for work.
“We found cancer,” the radiologist told her.
“That wasn’t what I wanted to hear,” Wessell said. “What do I do next?”
“You’ll want to get a hold of Joann Stutzman with Project H.E.R.,” he said.
A Pink Lifeline
For Wessell and hundreds of other women newly diagnosed, Project H.E.R. provides the resources and reassurance they need on their journey with breast cancer.
There is a nurse navigator, a clinical social worker and breast cancer survivors who serve as lay mentors to guide women through the process.
“All of a sudden I was just sent into warp speed,” she recalled. “I didn’t realize things would happen so quickly.
“Project H.E.R. has been a lifeline,” Wessell said. “Without any family members to talk this through, I could call and know I would get some wonderful, helpful answers.”
Wessell found a surgeon and oncologist. And after the annual Red, White and Blues Festival hosted by the Downtown Corvallis Association, she had a bilateral mastectomy. Her daughter, Stephanie, who was getting married three weeks later, stayed with her at the hospital and during recovery.
“Mom, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere but by your side,” Stephanie told her.
Friends filled a cooler with frozen dinners so they wouldn’t have to cook and they spent several days at the coast watching the ocean outside the window, resting, relaxing and recovering.
It was hard for Wessell to adjust to her new body image.
“I’d step out of the shower and look at this person in the mirror with the scar across my chest and say, ‘It’s not me,’” she recalled.
At first, she wore Softee shirts with breast forms. Then she got fitted for prosthesis. “They were expensive. But having them made me feel better,” she said. “I looked like a woman again.”
At the breast cancer support group, she learned about the Center for Restorative Breast Surgery in New Orleans. Six months after her mastectomy, she started the reconstructive phase in her journey. A friend from the support group, Julie Hansen, volunteered to go as her caregiver for the first of three surgeries. Two other women she knows from her work through Downtown Corvallis, Amy Lampton and Diane Hass, accompanied her on two subsequent trips.
Coming Out
Through it all, Wessell kept quiet about her diagnosis. She even brought her computer with her to the hospital and put out the Downtown Association newsletter while she recovered. So it was a surprise to many people in the community when Wessell was among the cancer survivors who walked out with Oregon State gymnasts last February for the Pink Out Gymnastics meet.
“When I walked across the floor of Gill Coliseum I thought, this is really my coming out,” she said.
Wessell said she’s always appreciated life. Cancer made her genuinely value every single day.
“Things that once seemed ‘uber-duber’ important now have taken a back seat,” she said. “I’m taking one day at a time.”
She is delighted and honored to participate in Puttin’ on the Pink on Oct. 13, 2012, her brother Sonny’s birthday.
“I’m dedicating my Puttin’ on the Pink catwalk to Sonny,” she said.
