Poetic License

On July 2nd, Dr. Susan Love died of recurrent leukemia. I’m sure she fought with courage and a little bravado the disease (cancer) she had spent her career waging war against. I’m sure she was attended by the best doctors money could buy. She deserved that. After all, her work saved my life and countless others. When she started her career as a surgeon, many people would not even say the word “breast” or “breast cancer” in polite company. Women suffered and died in silence. If they were lucky enough to get treatment, they were essentially butchered, sometimes even having their chest muscles removed. The disease was poorly understood, and there was a lot of “we’ve always done it this way” methodology.

By the time I was diagnosed, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, newer, better treatments were available, in large part to the efforts of Dr. Love and those who jumped on her bandwagon of increased funding and research for breast cancer. She first challenged the medical establishment and the way things were done. The irony is that she stumbled into breast surgery. She completed her surgical residency as chief resident at Harvard, but when it came time to get her first job as a fully-fledged surgeon, no one would hire her. So she started her own practice and eventually became a go-to surgeon for women who had breast issues.

It was a happy accident, then, that she became the face of cancer research. She helped to found the National Breast Cancer Coalition in 1991, and she challenged many of the standard practices for the treatment of women, including routine HRT, which was discovered to be linked to the occurrence of breast cancer. She challenged surgical practices and opted for breast-sparing surgeries, such as partial mastectomy and lumpectomy. Her pioneering spirit caught on. Later, other doctors, such as oncologist Dr. Dennis Slamon, began developing treatment for special types of breast cancer. In Dr. Slamon’s case, he championed the development of Herceptin, one of the drugs that saved my life. Before Herceptin was available, my type of cancer would have killed me pretty quickly. It was a death sentence. Now it’s treatable, and maybe even curable. (I don’t like using that particular “C” word, because cancer is insidious and can recur out of the clear blue sky.)

Love was also a pioneer for women’s rights and for same-sex relationship rights. She married her partner, Dr. Helen Cooksey, in San Francisco in 2004, and fought for and won the “approval for the first joint adoption by a gay couple from the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, a state that did not recognize same-sex marriage at the time.” (Wikipedia) To think that she started her adult life wanting to be a nun! I’m so glad she walked away from the convent. Her work for breast cancer probably saved my life as surely as did Dr. Slamon’s research and development of Herceptin. At the very least, her book Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book gave me all the tools and language I needed to have an intelligent conversation with my oncologist at my very first appointment.

When Dr. Marina, a red-haired Russian woman, said she was astounded that I had such an understanding of what we were about to embark upon, I said, “You can thank Dr. Love for that. When my gynecologist told me I should be ‘concerned but not fearful’ about this mass, I bought Dr. Love’s book the next day.”

I’m amazed to be alive. I’m amazed to be doing as well as I am, considering. Yes, I have collateral damage from all that was thrown at my body, but I’m still here. I still get to enjoy life.

Thank you, Dr. Love. Thank you, Dr. Slamon. Thank you to all the doctors who helped me directly and personally over my 16 months of treatment. If only we could all impact the world in such a way!

Although this song isn’t about her, I can’t help but think she might get a kick out of it.

Happy Independence Day, peeps. I hope you have a safe and happy one, and that you get to enjoy many more.

~Jude