8A
THURSDAY October 20, 2016 The Daily Illini DailyIllini.com
LIFE & CULTURE Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Stories of Strength: Pat Malik
JESSICA JUTZI THE DAILY ILLINI
Pat Malik is the director of the Divison of Disability Resources and Educational Services. Malik was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. She received her last treatment in April 1993, and is now cancer free. BY EMILY SCOTT STAFF WRITER
Twenty-four years later, Pat Malik still forgets certain things. She doesn’t forget the way she felt when she discovered the lump on her breast. Or the way she felt when her doctor called and asked, “Are you sitting down?” before telling her she had breast cancer. But sometimes, she forgets to acknowledge the giftedness of each day, to enjoy both the good and the bad, to appreciate talking to her family or scratching behind her dog’s ears. “I have to be very cautious now to go back every so often and say, ‘Don’t forget you’re a survivor. Don’t let this day slip through your fingers. It’s a gift,’” she said. Malik was diagnosed with estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer in 1992. On a Saturday morning in July of that year, she felt an itchy, burning sensation on the outside of her right breast, and when she went to scratch it, she felt a lump the size of a peach pit. She was 36 and married at the time. Her son Caleb was 2 years old when she got her diagnosis. “I remember feeling like I had kind of gotten run over by a bulldozer,” Malik said. For her husband Ron, the easiest way to describe it was “scary.” “There’s no other way to say it,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a single dad. With a 2-year-old and everything else, it was tough.” Weeks later, Malik decided to have a lumpectomy, a procedure that removes tissue from the breast, followed by radiation and chemotherapy treatments. She continued to work full time as a faculty member at Illinois State University as she underwent her first treatments, initially choosing not to tell her students. But once she started chemotherapy, she knew her
hair would begin to fall out within In December, she felt too weak to put up Christmas decorations at 10 days. It was one of the hardest parts for her home like she normally did, so her. Her hair didn’t just fall out — it a group of her students decided to came out in clumps. She would sit for come to her house one day and put a while and then see hair had fallen them up for her. to her shoulders. It fell out while she As Malik lay sick in bed, she liswas in the shower. tened to the sounds of her students Knowing it would be difficult talking and laughing in her living to hide the effects of chemothera- room, comforted by the fact that her py, she showed up to her class on son Caleb was with them, surroundthe Wednesday before Thanks- ed by people who cared. giving that year prepared with an “It’s a really wonderful memory announcement. of mine,” she said. “It was one of the “Good news for kindest things that all the people that a group of people are here,” she had have done for me.” said to her class. In the years after her last treatment “You get extra in April 1993, Malik points for just became involved showing up, and you’ll be the last of with organizations such as Susan G. the people who are going to see me Komen Race for with a full head of the Cure and Relay for Life. hair.” One day, she She and her husband came home was driving home from visiting famfrom a Relay for ily in PennsylvaLife meeting with nia for Thanksgivher son Caleb, who ing, where Malik was 5 years old at had donned a pink PAT MALIK the time. BREAST CANCER SURVIVOR baseball cap. When “You know, God they got home, her didn’t make me husband got out the have cancer,” she electric razor and said to her son. “It’s shaved her head. not something God did to me, it’s just “It sounds very vain, but losing something that happened. However, your hair, I don’t know why, it was I just really do believe that God said, such a difficult thing for me at that ‘Well, I’ve got to get her attention period of time,” she said. “But you somehow.’” She explained to her son how she get over it.” Her students continued to be a felt she hadn’t been paying attensource of support while she under- tion to her life, and how being busy went treatment. One student gave all the time led her to lose track of her a cassette tape of instrumental the important things. music. Malik would listen to it when “I really wasn’t paying attention she went for chemotherapy treat- to God and wasn’t listening to him, ments and at night to help her fall so he allowed me to get bonked on asleep. She played it so often that the head,” she said. she wore the tape out. “Well, what does God sound like?”
“I have to be very cautious now to go back every so often and say, ‘Don’t forget you’re a survivor. Don’t let this day slip through your fingers. It’s a gift.’”
her son asked. “What’s his voice sound like?” “I think that God speaks to us in silence, and in whispers, in things that are happening around you,” she answered. “Why do you want to know what he sounds like?” “Because I don’t want him to bonk me over the head like he had to bonk you over the head,” he answered. In the years after her last treatment, Malik learned to be more intentional about appreciating everything — good and bad — that happened in any given day. “At least you were here to experience the bad stuff,” she would tell herself. Today, cancer-free and the director of Disability Resources and Educational Services at the University, Malik reminds herself to appreciate each day. She hopes it is a lesson that she can bring into the workplace, and that it’s something to pass on to her children, Caleb and Jacob. Caleb said they don’t talk much about his mother being a cancer survivor, but being aware of this fact has helped him be more grateful of his parents. “It makes me more appreciative of having them around,” he said. Twenty-four years ago, after her diagnosis, Malik had a conversation with God, saying she wanted to see her 2-year-old son reach adulthood. She said she never takes it for granted that she was given more than that. “If I were to get a diagnosis now, I would know that I’ve taken care of the people in my life and they’re going to be okay,” Malik said. “And I hope they would be okay, not just because they’re 20 and 26, but hopefully by what they learned by being with their mom, about what the important stuff is and how to treat people and to live their life the best way they know how.”
emscott5@dailyillini.com
M - TH 4PM - 9PM FRI: 4PM - 10PM SAT: 11AM - 10PM SUN: 11AM - 9PM