Record South Whidbey
INSIDE The music of color A12
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2012 | Vol. 88, No. 80 | www.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.com | 75¢
A journey to freedom
In the deepest of pain, Gail Rognan found the greatest of joy
G
By KATHY REED
ail Rognan believes cancer set her free. It has been nearly six months since the 58-yearold Coupeville woman was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had undergone regular mammograms every two years most of her adult life.
When she accepted a job as a sales representative with a local publishing company a little more than a year ago, she missed her regular mammogram, so followed up with one last April, about three years after her last screening. “I was thinking it would be nothing, as usual,” she said. Instead, she was called back in for a second mammogram, then a biopsy. Even then she was unprepared for the news her doctor shared with her: She had cancer. “When you hear it, your first thought is, ‘I can’t do this,’” Rognan said, explaining the thing she probably feared most in the world was having cancer. “Then you make the decision to either fight or give up,” she said. “Now you deal with it.” Rognan’s physician, Dr. Leah Oman, general surgeon/breast surgeon at Whidbey General Hospital, was the person to break the news and also the first to give her hope. “She took my hand and said ‘You’re going to be fine.’ And I believed her,” Rognan said. And that’s when her fight for freedom began.
Diagnosis According to Oman, Rognan had a “moderately differentiated, invasive duct carcinoma,” which she described as basic, garden-variety breast cancer.
“Meaning it’s kind of middle-of-the-road, it doesn’t grow too quickly, but it doesn’t grow slowly, either,” Oman said, clearly not meaning to minimize the significance of the diagnosis. “Gail’s tumor was 2.5 centimeters — that’s moderate to big. We like to find them less than 1 centimeter.” Treatment options for Rognan included a lumpectomy to remove the tumor, followed by a course of radiation treatments, or a mastectomy, the removal of the breast. “Those options are available for everyone,” Oman said. “Although if the tumor is too big for us to be able to get a healthy margin around it with a lumpectomy, we would have to perform a mastectomy.” After careful consideration of her options, which for Rognan included considering whether she would be able to work while undergoing radiation therapy, she decided to have a double mastectomy, which some might consider an extreme course of treatment. “I felt like that was the right decision for me,” Rognan said, adding that she did a lot of reading about it and talked to several people so she felt she was making an informed decision. “I told people they may not agree with my decision, but at least they could support me.”
Finding a new family A private person, Rognan said she wasn’t sure who to talk to about her diagnosis. She wound up finding much of her support from co-workers. “I was looking for a community and found a family here,” Rognan said. “She came to me and said ‘I’ve got to tell someone, I’ve got to get it off my chest. I found a lump,’” said Connie Ross, adminis-
Gail Rognan and Spark
“I feel like I have more to give in this life. I’m not done yet.” trative coordinator for Sound Publishing’s Whidbey News Group. “She doesn’t like attention, so it made me feel special that she would trust me with such a personal issue and share what she was going through.”
Recovery Rognan underwent surgery in June and said she is healing well and feeling good. According to Dr. Oman, Rognan’s prognosis is excellent. Through it all, she has tried hard to maintain a positive outlook. She has written poetry for a while, which has helped her attitude. “I call them my soul poems, because they come from the inside out,” she said. “It’s really helped me focus on what’s important.” She said she has plans to take a painting class and hopes to write a book about her experiences, the title of which is a good example of an important element to her healing — humor. “I want to call it ‘I Lost Two Boobs but I Gained Two Balls,’ — oh, can you even write that in a story?” she asked, genuinely shocked she let her idea slip out. Then she explained what she means. “The cancer has released me as a person,” she said. “I’m learning to speak up, to set
better boundaries. It freed me up to be who I am. “Now I say what I mean,” she continued. “I don’t hold it inside — it’s too toxic.” Said Ross, “Humor was definitely her way of coping. She has a great sense of humor and a positive outlook.” Rognan is continuing to focus on her healing, helped in large part by her dog, Spark, and her new-found family at work. She wants other women to know they can face their fears and come out feeling stronger than they imagined. “In the deepest of pain, you find great joy,” she said. “You’re not alone. There is hope.” Dr. Oman said, “Don’t be afraid of what you don’t see. Breast cancer is not a death sentence. Think of it more like a chronic disease. It’s not fun, but it’s a journey you can take and get through.” Rognan is grateful for the support of others who have shared her experience. “We all have to help each other,” she said. “If I could do what Dr. Oman did that day, if I could hold someone’s hand and tell them they’re going to be fine, I think it would make a ton of difference to somebody. “I feel like I have more to give in this life. I’m not done yet.”
As of 2010, there are more than 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. The best protection is early detection.