Feeling Blessed There was never any one thing that sustained Marlene Johnson as she started battling breast cancer in August 2014. In reflecting on the past 18 months, Marlene points to her husband Chopper, faith, family, friends and a highly supportive community among the elements that helped ease her pain and uncertainty about the future as she completed treatment and surgery. “Today, I feel blessed for having taken this journey,” Marlene says. “Chopper and I made so many new friends and experienced the great love and care of family, friends and community through all of it. People started reaching out to us from the start.” Marlene, a teacher in the Yankton School District for many years, readily found support and encouragement in the large network of friends she had acquired through her work. She was grateful for the extension of their concern for Chopper, too. “On this side of our experience, I think it might be harder on the caregivers of cancer patients than it is on the patients themselves,” Marlene says. “Patients know how we’re feeling and how different things are affecting us. Our caregivers want to take care of everything for us, and they can’t.” Marlene’s treatment consisted of eight rounds of chemotherapy followed by a double mastectomy and thirty-three radiation treatments. She was warned about many possible side effects, including sores in her mouth, dramatic changes in food preferences and a nasty metal taste in her mouth. While few of the predictions materialized for her, there was no escape from the predicted hair loss. “I remember being so concerned about losing my hair,” Marlene says. “They told me that at some point I might wake up in the morning and find all my hair on the pillow. I remember a couple of nights that I thought I just wouldn’t lay down and thought that would keep me from losing my hair.” Marlene also attempted to trim her hair back as much as possible before she lost it. The results were less than desirable. She laughs now at the lengths she went to in avoiding the inevitable. “I think losing your hair is especially traumatic for women,” she says. “I’m a take charge kind of person, so I thought there must be some way I could gain control over that.” Acquiring a wig helped alleviate Marlene’s angst over her hair loss, but concerns about her appearance quickly faded when she was suddenly faced with the effects of a stroke. The incident, which occurred during her chemotherapy treatment, also happened while Chopper and their son Kyler were at home. Marlene was soon in the hands of medical doctors at SCHEDULE YOUR SPRING WINDOW CLEANING TODAY! BEFORE WINDOW CLEANING NATURESCAPING DESIGNS AFTER WINDOW CLEANING 14vHERVOICEvMARCH/APRIL 2016 ( LANDSCAPING | PROPERTY CARE | HOLIDAY DECORATING ) CALL US TODAY NATURESCAPINGDESIGNS.COM LAURAWNSD@GMAIL.COM 605.661.1205