Editor's note: Sheri Doniger's column, Dental Diaries, appears regularly on the DrBicuspid.com advice and opinion page, Second Opinion.
As dentists, we have the incredible fortune of meeting many women (and men) from all walks of life. But this month, my thoughts have been focused on two dear friends who not only are extraordinary clinicians, dedicated parents, and wonderful daughters, they are survivors. Breast cancer survivors.
One has been a friend of mine since my dental hygienist days. She and I drove to school together every day. We studied together, played together, and graduated together. We got married around the same time, had children around the same time, and now are trying to become empty nesters (although she became a grandmother long before I did).
When she found out she had breast cancer, we approached it together. I tried to be there for her every step of the way. We looked at each phase of therapy and how it was affecting her body. We tried to find humor in anything we could. We even discussed the side effects of chemotherapy as her personal science experiment. But in the end, after months of medical poking and prodding, she can say she is a survivor.
The other woman is a friend from dental school. As many of you recall, we were seated alphabetically. This woman and I did not have similar last names, but in those days, all women usually stuck together. Even though we were rooms apart, we were all there to survive the experience of being a woman in a man's dental school. She was diagnosed with breast cancer more than six years ago.
Both women found out about their breast cancer through a mammogram. Both were treated with the course of surgical intervention and postchemo and radiation therapy, and both were subsequently cancer free. But five years later, my dental school friend found out that her disease had relapsed and her breast cancer had metastasized. She had to go through another round of therapy. Fortunately, she is fine now.
Throughout all of their treatments, both of these brave women continued to work and had the support of their families and colleagues, which helped to strengthen their survival spirit.
It is a rare woman who hasn't encountered a friend or relative who is a survivor. These are two of the many women I have met during the course of my practice. We find them with our medical questionnaires and we find them in our personal lives. These are friends, mothers, daughters, and colleagues ... these are people we know. I think it would be impossible for any of us to say that breast cancer has not touched someone we know or love.
For those women who have been diagnosed, we need to be unwavering in our support and steadfast in our comfort. Women, we need to remember to care for our bodies and get that annual mammogram, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For my friends, your friends, and our patients and families -- have you been wearing your pink?
Sheri Doniger, D.D.S., practices clinical dentistry in Lincolnwood, IL. She has served as an educator in several dental and dental hygiene programs, has been a consultant for a major dental benefit company, and has written for several dental publications. Most recently, she was the editor of Woman Dentist Journal and Woman Dentist eJournal. You can reach her at [email protected].
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