SUN Awareness Issue 2019

N O R T H E R N S A N TA B A RB A R A C O U N T Y ’ S N E W S A N D E N T E R TA I N M E N T W E E K LY > O C T O B E R 3 - O C T O B E R 10 , 2 0 19 > VO L . 20 N O. 31 > W W W. S A N TA M A RI A S U N .C O M

AT THE MOVIES

Powerlifting for breast cancer [8]; language barriers to domestic violence help [10]; combining cancer and cosmetic surgery into one [12]

BY SUN STAFF

NEWS

HVI Cat Canyon owes the county money [5]

ARTS

Save t

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Miles Davis is cool [30]

How to prep for an audition [26]

EATS

Jack’s breakfast of champions [34]

Heavy lifting

Central Coast powerlifting family uses competitive meets to promote breast cancer awareness

GETTING PREPARED: After taking years off of competing, Ken and Clay Tawzer have been working out in their home gym prior to an upcoming event.

BY ZAC EZZONE

A

fter years of competing together at powerlifting meets—breaking an array of national and international records—the Los Alamos family’s tradition was disrupted when Mary Tawzer was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in her life.

Mary’s husband, Ken Tawzer, tried competing on his own for about a year following a surgery that ended Mary’s powerlifting days. But, he said, it just wasn’t the same without his wife and his son, Clay.

“I just said, ‘You know what, this is bullshit,’” Ken said. “It’s not fun anymore, not without …

Mary. That was the reason I quit.”

However, almost 10 years later, Ken and Clay are competing again. This time, it’s to raise awareness about the same disease that ended the family powerlifting tradition. At a meet in Sacramento earlier this year, Ken donned a singlet with the words “Save the ta-tas” written in pink on the side. On the back, the singlet reads, “I wear because I care.”

“If it saves one woman’s life, it’s worth it,” Ken said about this endeavor. “That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.”

Mary was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997, when she was 39 years old. A few years prior to that, she went to see her obstetriciangynecologist about a small lump in one of her breasts about the size of a pea. The doctor

PHOTOS BY ZAC EZZONE

lymph nodes.

It was after this diagnosis that Mary underwent the surgery that ended her time as a powerlifter. At the time, doctors told her she could only lift about 3- to 5-pound weights.

“I go, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Mary said. “Because at that point I deadlifted 308 pounds.”

Six years later, in early 2018, while she was at the hospital being treated for pneumonia, a doctor suspected Mary might have cancer after completing a CT scan of her upper body. Following this scan, Mary said she learned she has metastatic breast cancer that had spread into her liver, stomach lining, and into her chest.

Since then, the medication she’s taken has helped shrink some of the tumors. Recently, she started a new type of chemotherapy treatment that she hasn’t had any issues with.

Mary’s long battle with breast WEARING AND CARING: Ken Tawzer had a custom singlet made to raise cancer has inspired some of her family awareness about breast cancer during powerlifting competitions. members to not take any chances with their own health. Mary said her this type of early identification and prevention. daughter noticed a lump in her breast that a doctor said wasn’t suspicious. Her daughter About a year ago, Ken said they decided the best way to get the word out is through powerlifting asked the doctor to remove it anyway and have it competitions. Ken said he and Clay are tested. It turns out it could have been cancerous participating in a World Association of Bench if they hadn’t removed it, Mary said.

Presses and Deadlifters meet in Las Vegas in “I also had two cousins that found lumps in November. They plan on participating in next their breasts—little ones—and they had them year’s event in Wisconsin as well. taken out,” Mary said.

Aside from the singlet Ken now wears when The Tawzer family wants to promote more of competing, the family plans to have T-shirts and pink rubber bracelets made to take to these events. Additionally, the family plans to pass out pamphlets to raise awareness about breast cancer screenings.

Ken said he hopes that through these sorts of actions the family is able to motivate other people to get mammograms and act early if they locate some sort of lump in their breasts.

Although a few studies over the years have questioned the effectiveness of mammograms, the American Cancer Society states that regular mammograms can be helpful in identifying breast cancer early, when it can be more easily treated.

While fully acknowledging the strength his wife has displayed throughout her battle with cancer, Ken said the entire situation has been hard for him to bear. The whole family continues to rely on one another for support.

“It’s only been recently I’ve been able to talk about it without crying,” Ken said. “She’s my best friend and my wife second. All I know is her, and I don’t want to lose her.” m

told Mary that it didn’t feel suspicious, and suggested she get a mammogram, but didn’t direct her to get one. Over the next few years, the lump grew a bit and then began to hurt.

Two or three years later, when she was in the hospital being treated for a urinary tract infection, Mary’s primary doctor noticed the lump in her breast.

“He was checking me out and he said, ‘What is this?’” Mary said.

“He goes, ‘What is this lump here?

How come you’ve never told me?’”

The doctor made arrangements for Mary to get a mammogram and to see a surgeon. At the appointment, the surgeon removed the lump, which turned out to be cancerous. Following this, Mary said she then began seeing a doctor at Mission Hope Cancer Center in Santa Maria, where she began chemotherapy.

Over the next 15 years, she returned to the hospital for annual check-ups. It was during one of these appointments that Mary’s doctor discovered a lump in the area near her armpit. After some testing, the FAMILIAL SUPPORT: Throughout Mary’s battle with breast cancer, the Tawzer doctor determined Mary’s cancer family members have relied on one another for support. had resurfaced and spread into her

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SOLUTIONS

BUILDING AWARENESS: Domestic Violence Solutions organizes annual vigils, such as the one that took place in Santa Maria last year, as a way to spread awareness and support victims of domestic violence. This year, candlelight vigils will take place in Lompoc on Oct. 11, Santa Maria on Oct. 18, and Santa Barbara on Oct. 25. To learn more, visit dvsolutions.org.

Lost in translation

Language differences present a barrier for Mixtec women to seek help for domestic violence— or know it’s even out there

BY WILLIAM D’URSO

F

or Norma Cruz, the work is personal.

She’s a social worker for a women’s shelter in Santa Maria that services at-risk women, often of domestic violence. She’s part of Domestic Violence Solutions, an organization that aims to protect the victims of domestic violence.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) estimates that 10 million people a year suffer from domestic violence.

Not all of those people seek help, but Domestic Violence Solutions offers women the option of leaving their situations. Jan Campbell, the director of Domestic Violence Solutions, said women leaving their homes may not have much money or credit to help them get a new life.

“It’s a very pervasive and very hidden thing because people don’t want to admit that the person they’re in a loving relationship with would hurt them,” she said. “People are afraid because now they’ve left their home, they have their children.”

But the women Cruz specializes in treating have an added complication: language.

Cruz said these women come from Mixtec areas of Mexico, regions where people speak neither English nor Spanish. She said many of the women she works with come to the U.S. as purchased brides for large sums, often $15,000 to

$20,000. Without a common language, she said it makes leaving their husbands more difficult.

“They’re isolated here and don’t understand the resources we have to help them,” Cruz said.

Cruz’s parents came to Santa Maria from one of these regions, Oaxaca. She grew up bilingual, speaking Mixtec and English. But she said it’s difficult to find people with the language skills to interact with the Mixtec population here.

“They don’t know where the stores are; they don’t know where anything is,” she said.

That makes it difficult for them to leave dangerous domestic situations, she said.

The U.S. is also a completely different culture to many of them. Cruz said her own grandmother was purchased as a bride by her grandfather’s family and suffered beatings for years.

“My mom saw this type of abuse with her parents,” Cruz said. “I grew up hearing about this person or that person who ran away. It was normalized.”

Though bride purchases do happen in the Mixtec community, it’s hard to say how many, and it’s hard to say how many women are abused—Cruz said that kind of data isn’t easy to come by. Even English speaking U.S. citizens have numerous barriers when it comes to leaving abusive relationships. Cruz said the women fear violence, worry about leaving their children behind, or simply don’t have the

money to get out of a dangerous situation.

The Mixtec region in Mexico stretches about 15,000 square miles, according to mixtec.org, a website founded and operated by the Latin American Studies Department at San Diego State University.

The region’s peoples are known for their agriculture, but the quality of the soil makes mass production difficult, keeping much of the crops to subsistence farming, according to mixtec.org.

Mixtecs represent the largest of three indigenous peoples, numbering around 500,000. But those numbers are two decades old, representing the difficulty there is in monitoring such a small population in a country of nearly 130 million people.

For abused women from a Mixtec region like Oaxaca, the language barrier compounds the problems brought on by domestic abuse. Cruz said many of them aren’t in the country legally, and they fear that asking for help could send them to immigration enforcement authorities.

National rhetoric regarding immigrants is polarizing, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids making national news,

such as that of a Mississippi chicken plant this summer. However, total deportations have been down during President Donald Trump’s term.

News site Axios reported that President Barack Obama’s administration deported more than 400,000 immigrants in fiscal year 2012, while Trump deported more than 250,000 in fiscal years 2015 and 2016.

Locally, the fear of deportation remains a strong deterrent—social worker Cruz said that the shelter doesn’t get as many people as they’d like, partly because they fear being forced out of the country. She estimates that maybe 100 Mixtec women come through the shelter each year, but she knows there are more women who are abused out there. Cruz said it’s sometimes difficult to keep them from going back to abusive relationships because there aren’t many people who speak the same language.

But there are success stories. Cruz said some women have come through the program, received Social Security numbers, and are earning a living here legally.

Domestic Violence Solutions Executive Director Campbell said that part of getting Mixtec women—or any victim of abuse—on their own is showing them that there’s a better way.

“If you grow up and think that’s how people behave toward each other, you’re more likely to be a victim or an abuser,” Campbell said. m Staff Writer William D’Urso can be reached at wdurso@santamariasun.com.

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THE AWARENESS ISSUE

PHOTOS COURTESY OF DIGNITY HEALTH

Sense of self

A breast surgeon at Mission Hope Cancer Center works to treat the whole patient

BY CAMILLIA LANHAM

appears invisible.

“And then, it’s just less of a reminder,” Rocco t’s one thing to have breast cancer. It’s another said. “Breast surgeons are trying to offer it to thing on top of it to have a deformed breast people because we are trying to tell people, ‘You after surgery. don’t have to be deformed after surgery.’”

“It’s a very emotional disease,” Dr. Monica It’s not always possible to perform Hidden Rocco said. “We’re all raised that breasts are Scar surgery, depending on where the lumps part of a women’s sexuality. Not only have we or tumors are located and what exactly is been raised that way, but society has made needed based on the patient’s prognosis. But breasts part of a woman’s sexuality.” women should ask their surgeon if it’s possible, Rocco, who works at Mission Hope Cancer Rocco said. And, she said, she understands Center as a clinical and surgical specialist in that appearance isn’t necessarily important to the Breast Care program, has been a surgeon everyone. for 25 years who’s specialized in breasts for 14.

“I have to sit down and talk to that woman As a female surgeon, she said, she understands before I can tell if it’s important or not,” Rocco how important breasts can be to the female said. “You never know how important it is identity—and how concerned some women until you sit down and talk to that woman ... are with how their breasts will look after a age doesn’t determine it. Marital status doesn’t lumpectomy (removal of a lump or tumor) or determine it. ... It’s totally an individual answer.” mastectomy (removal of the whole breast).

Getting to know her patients and understand “You all of a sudden have to look at yourself what they want is part of her job, Rocco said. in the mirror and see that you’ve either lost It’s why she started specializing in Hidden Scar a breast completely or have it deformed in surgery—to give her patients as many options some way that can be really difficult. ... That somewhat defines us. It sets us apart from men,” as possible to choose from as they go through Rocco said. “We would like to continue to make their cancer treatment.

“As a breast surgeon, I get to take care of them beautiful, and I think that’s important.” the patient—heart, body, and soul—and I That’s why for two years now, Rocco has like having long-term relationships with my specialized in a procedure known as Hidden patients.” she said. “I like being able to take care Scar breast cancer surgery. It’s cancer removal of the whole patient.” and cosmetic She also performs surgery all in one. genetic testing for Surgeons who those who want specialize in the to find out if they technique, which have any genetic is fairly new, learn mutations that how to place their might put them at incisions on the risk for cancer. Only breast so they’re about 10 percent of as cosmetically the people who get appealing as breast cancer actually possible. Either have a mutation, under the arm, but if someone does beneath the breast, test positive for a or through the mutation, it can put areola, depending them at a higher risk on where the for breast cancer, cancer is located. and it could change They then try to potential treatment rearrange the fatty options. tissue to close off TREATING THE WHOLE PERSON: Mission Hope Cancer Center, any dead space, so Most breast where Dr. Monica Rocco works, is celebrating its sixth anniversary any tissue that’s cancer cases— this year. been removed about 60 percent,

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according to Rocco—are sporadic. There’s no family history of breast cancer and no genetic mutation. Approximately 30 percent of cases are familial, or inherited.

Rocco said she sees more than 150 breast cancer cases a year, with patients coming from all over the Central Coast, between Lompoc and Cayucos.

She said she tries to listen to her patients as much as possible in order to take care of more than just the surgical part of them. As a breast surgeon, she says, you have to be able to take them through the entire journey, from chemotherapy to surgery to post-surgery and beyond.

Over her decades as a surgeon, she said treatment for breast cancer has involved less and less surgery, which is something she sees as a good thing. When she was a resident, she said doctors performed a lot of mastectomies, and now, as often as possible, surgeons do lumpectomies, which target the specific area with the cancer. Chemotherapy is used to shrink the tumors before surgery, and breast

cancer is being caught earlier and earlier with imaging and regular checkups.

Sometimes, tumors can be treated with just chemotherapy and radiation. And as treatment technology continues to progress, Rocco said she can see a future where surgery is no longer necessary.

“My hope before I die is that pretty soon I’ll be out of business. We won’t even operate on breast cancer patients anymore,” Rocco said.

“That would be beautiful to me.” m Reach Editor Camillia Lanham at clanham@

Girls night out

Mission Hope Cancer Center invites you to a Girls Night Out on Oct. 29 at 5 p.m. in celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Oncologist Dr. Erin Chamberlain and Breast Care Program Clinical and Surgical Specialist Dr. Monica Rocco will give brief presentations and answer questions anyone might have. The Hitching Post will provide light appetizers and wine.

Call Mission Hope to register at (805) 219-HOPE (4673).

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MORE THAN A SURGEON: Dr. Monica Rocco specializes in a breast cancer surgery known as Hidden Scar. It’s a way of removing cancer that leaves the breast as intact as possible by hiding surgery scars.

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