How two survivors found life after cancer

BY GARIN PIRNIA | LINK nky CONTRIBUTOR

At 77 years old, and with two breast cancer diagnoses 26 years apart, Sally Bruce doesn’t have time to die.

In fact, she doesn’t have time for cancer, either. She has to take care of her precious 15-year-old calico cat, and she has many baseball games to attend. She has a lot more life to experience.

“It doesn’t have to be a death sentence, although when I got my first diagnosis, my first words were, ‘I just paid cash for a car,’ ” Bruce said. “I did spend about a week in my room feeling sorry for myself. And then I got over it because I said, ‘All right, let’s just get on with life. Life is too important, and it’s too short. Why be miserable? It doesn’t do you any good. It makes you sick. I don’t want to be sick. I don’t have time. I haven’t read all the books in the library yet.”

Those who supposedly beat cancer are seen as triumphant, but they don’t get through it alone. It requires years of finding support from friends and family, sharing their story with others and attending cancer support groups where they can share their experiences with others who know what it’s like. Once the disease ends, the support can continue indefinitely.

As Bruce said, a cancer diagnosis isn’t always a death sentence. According to the National Cancer Institute, 18.1 million cancer survivors exist in the U.S. Sixty-nine percent of cancer survivors have lived cancer-free for at least five years, and 67 percent of survivors are over 65 years old. Twenty-two percent of cancer survivors had breast cancer.

All of this bodes well for Bruce, of Villa Hills, and Cathy Ketterer, 70, of Cold Spring.

In 1996, doctors diagnosed Bruce with estrogen-negative Stage 1 breast cancer during a routine mammogram; she didn’t have a family history of cancer. She had a lumpectomy, six rounds of chemotherapy three weeks apart and 28 days of radiation. A couple of years ago, Bruce’s husband of 52 years passed away.

“He was my greatest support,” she said. “We don’t have any immediate family living in the area. We’ve been in Northern Kentucky for 40 years, and my closest family is in Mississippi or heaven, whichever’s closer.”

In November 2022, doctors discovered that Bruce had another form of breast cancer –in the same breast. In December, she had another lumpectomy. But unlike with her first bout of cancer, this time doctors prescribed her a five-year drug, and she didn’t need any further treatment.

She said she feels well enough to pursue her goal of visiting all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums. So far, she’s visited 23 and plans to visit three more this year.

“I do not have a bucket list, and the reason I don’t have a bucket list is because on day 999, I don’’t want to have to rush out to do one more thing,” she said. “I don’t have this list of things that I need to check off.”

She’s also planning a cruise on the Mississippi River, from St. Louis to Minneapolis. When she steps off the boat, it’ll mean that in her lifetime she will have traveled from New Orleans to Minneapolis on the Mississippi – yet another accomplishment.

“I am grateful every morning to wake up on the right side of the dirt,” she said. “I’ll go to bed at night and thank God for the day, whether it was a good day or crappy day, because I got to live it.”

Speaking of baseball, that’s how breast cancer survivor Cathy Ketterer met Bruce. In 2018, while Ketterer was in her first round of chemo, she attended the Reds’ A Night Of Their Own at Great American Ball

Park, sponsored by St. Elizabeth, where Bruce volunteers.

“I get this call from St. Elizabeth: ‘You have an opportunity to go in a limo. We’re going to take you to the Reds stadium,’ ” Ketterer said. “That was my first meeting with Sally. I was the last one to arrive, but I don’t think she was going to let that limo go until I showed up. She’s pretty attentive, like a mother hen. There was no game that night, but we got to go down on the field, touch the grass. We went in the dugout. We could peek into the locker room. We had coneys and Graeter’s. It was a fun night.”

As with Bruce, Ketterer also didn’t have a family history of cancer. She was diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer after a routine mammogram, though she hadn’t had a screening in a year-and-ahalf. (The American Cancer Society encourages women ages 40-44 to get mammograms every year, and for women ages 45-54 it suggests they definitely have one every year. Women 55 and older should get a screening annually or every two years.)

“They said, ‘We see something on the imaging, and we’d like for you to do an ultrasound,’ ” Ketterer said. “I went for the ultrasound, and they said, ‘We think you have breast cancer.’ They wanted to do a biopsy. The biopsy was rather intense. My tumor was near a blood vessel. So when they’re in there taking out their samples, it must have nicked that blood vessel. No one told me, but when they were done, I lifted my head off the pillow and there was a ring of blood. That was scary.”

She had a lumpectomy, chemo and radiation.

“When I first read the words, they seemed to jump off: invasive lobular cancer,” she said. “I started shaking. You kind of shock yourself. I thought, ‘I’ll give cancer a year of my life.’ I don’t know why I picked a year, and then I was going to be done. It’s like, ‘That’s all they’re going to get.’ You never know what’s going to happen next.”

She’s been on the drug Letrozole for the past five years, and in a month she’ll be a five-year survivor. In December, she’ll stop taking the drug.

“I think people don’t like taking it, probably because it’s a reminder,” she said. “But personally, I haven’t had a lot of side effects from that little pill.”

Both women say they have gotten through their illnesses through support groups and volunteer work. Since 2006, Bruce has volunteered at St. Elizabeth. Currently, she works at St. Elizabeth Edgewood. She’s also volunteered at American Cancer Society and Cancer Support Community.

“I’ve been retired for over 10 years now, so I want to, No. 1, keep busy, but No. 2, to let cancer patients know this is a journey they don’t have to go on alone, that there’s always somebody out there who can help them,” she said.

Ketterer attends a cancer support group at St. Elizabeth, and it’s helped her to be surrounded by knowledgeable people.

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“There’s a girl, Vicky,” Ketterer said. “I thought of her yesterday. She said, ‘Just do what your doctors tell you, and you’ll be fine.’ That’s a good attitude. You don’t always like all the procedures and the blood work, but if you do what they say, your chances are pretty good.”

She doesn’t have a lot of family, but her kids and grandkids are “the light of our life, and they keep us going,” she said.

Support group members have become her second family and have become vital to her survival.

“They know exactly what it feels like to worry and to be scared,” she said. “It doesn’t really go away just because your blood work is fine and your last mammogram was fine. I don’t think anybody really understands that unless you’ve gone through it.”

Because of chemo, Ketterer lost her hair, which she said was a traumatic and surreal experience. At first, clumps of hair came out, then she lost her entire crown.

“My friend told me, ‘It might be time to shave your head,’ ” she said. “I had my son do it. I don’t know why I chose him, but it would be good if he was here. And so he came over like a trooper, and we buzzed it all off, and it was kind of crazy.”

On the other side, Bruce understands the stress of hair loss and the joy of making a woman look beautiful with new hair.

“One of the greatest things about volunteering is that complimentary wig that we do, and turning the frown upside down,” she said. “Putting a wig on a woman, who then gets her hair back, is very, very rewarding.”

Through volunteering, Bruce shows newcomers they can have a life after cancer. Plus, it makes her feel good to give them sage advice.

“I tell the patients, ‘I have walked a mile in your shoes, and I know how tight they are, but I know if you keep walking forward, the light at the end of the tunnel is not the oncoming train,’ ” she said. “When it’s pouring down rain, that’s liquid sunshine.”

While Bruce takes a positive outlook, Ketterer tries to stay optimistic, but she said she sometimes struggles with doubt.

“I think all in all, I was pretty lucky,” she said. “But there’s a little voice in the back of your head that thinks, ‘Will it come back?’ It’s your new normal. I’m so grateful they caught it early.”

Ketterer doesn’t quite feel the clock ticking, but the disease has given her a new lease on life, in more subtle ways.

“I treasure my friendships and my interactions with people,” she said. “We go out and play cards. I try to make it the most fun. If I have somebody over for dinner, I try to make it a little more meaningful. I’m a firm believer it’s the little things that you do in life. You can say hi to somebody, but you can say hi and make eye contact and really connect. I think it’s made me more aware of the little things in life that are important.”

She’s accepted her new normal and, as her oncologist said, the fact that she will never be the same. But that voice in her head? She doesn’t let it rule her life.

“My blood work’s been good, and my mammograms have been good,” she said. “I’m crossing my fingers I’m going to be OK.”

Despite losing her husband as well as her struggles with cancer 27 years apart, Bruce maintains her bottled-sunshine outlook toward living. Because what else is there to do?

“We all have an expiration date,” she said. “We can’t live forever. I used to laugh and say I was too ornery to die. Negativity is contagious and can pull down everybody around you, but positivity is also contagious, and I would rather spread that. It’s helpful to other people to let them know there is life after cancer. Cancer doesn’t have to define you. I won’t let it. I’ve had two breast cancers and two melanomas, and I’m still here.”

Cancer Resources

Pink Ribbon Girls pinkribbongood.org/

The American Cancer Society cancer.org/

Cancer Support CommunityGreater CincinnatiNorthern Kentucky 513-791-4060 mycancersupportcommunity.org/

I Have Wings Breast Cancer Foundation

859-743-3044 ihavewings.org/

St. Elizabeth Cancer Care stelizabeth.com/medical-services/ cancer-care

St. Elizabeth Cancer Care Breast Cancer Support Group

It meets on the first Monday of each month from 6:30-8 p.m. at St. Elizabeth Women’s Health Center, 600 Medical Village Drive, Edgewood, 859-301-2273.