TRUMAN - "The first year - the year of treatment - I thought about dying a lot. I kept thinking what if this is the last time I get to do this or this ..."
Kaycee Hintz was diagnosed in October 2008 with stage 3C breast cancer, with the disease invading 14 of 24 lymph nodes. She lost her long hair, her breasts, even her ovaries. But she found a strength she never knew she had.
"One year after treatment was done," Hintz wrote, "you start thinking less and less about that, and you start thinking more and more about the future. You start planning for things for the next year and even after that.
"I have so much to live for and to look forward to. I have a great husband who takes very good care of me. I have three wonderful children and a wonderful son and daughter-in-law. I have a grandson, whom I adore, and I am looking forward to having more grandchildren in the future. My youngest will be a senior this year, and she has so much ahead of her yet, and I want to be here for all of it."
Talking about her experience isn't easy for Hintz, but she's doing it anyway, to educate people about the disease and promote 2010 Martin County Relay for Life.
Hintz, a shy woman, doesn't want to complain. But the truth is, that first year was hard, and so was the year after that, and the year after that.
"One thing about cancer is, you go through your treatments, you lose your hair, and then your hair starts growing back, and people sort of forget. What they don't always realize is there are a lot of long-term effects of cancer," she said.
She's now at risk of developing lymphodema, when the body's lymph fluids stop draining properly. Her ovaries were removed to stop her body from producing estrogen, but she still must take an estrogen-blocking drug to prevent the cancer from returning. Side effects include bone and joint pain, as well as weight gain. Her thyroid stopped working from the radiation.
"Before I had cancer, I wasn't on any medicine," she said.
Hintz was 45 at the time of her diagnosis.
"When he said it was cancer, it really didn't sink in right away," Hintz said. "Then the tears started flowing. I was all by myself, because I thought it was a check-up."
The doctor made her say out loud: "I am going to be OK."
Believing those words didn't come easily, not at first anyway. Like many people, the word "cancer" was scary to Hintz. She associated it with dying, and she did not feel like a woman who was dying.
"My daughter had just gotten married," she said. "Everything was great, everything was fine, everything was good. Then boom.
"That was the hardest part. I felt fine and then I found out, 'You're sick.'"
Reality soon set in. The double mastectomy was painful, worse than the four months of chemotherapy or month of radiation.
"I basically lived in that love seat. I slept there because I couldn't get comfortable anywhere else," she said, pointing to her living room.
Three drains had to be emptied, a job her husband, Larry, did three times a day: first thing in the morning, when he ran home from work over the noon hour, and in the evening.
"I cried a lot throughout the whole treatment," she said. "I'm a crier. I still cry. It just depends on the day. ... I still haven't had all the reconstruction yet, and I'm getting impatient with that."
Hintz has tissue expanders implanted to stretch her skin for reconstructive surgery. Soon she'll be ready, she hopes, but her skin is so thin from the radiation treatments the procedure is taking longer than usual.
Though the loss of her long hair was rather depressing, the radiation, long-term, has been harder on her body.
For 25 days, Monday through Friday, Larry drove his wife to Mankato for radiation treatments.
"It was three weeks before I really started getting red," she said, but the fatigue had already set in.
She slept a lot, except when she was on the job at WFS in Truman. When the actual treatments were complete, the radiation continued burning her body. Numb from surgery, Hintz couldn't feel the blisters and open sores.
Life went on. Her oldest daughter had a baby. Her son got married. Her high school daughter had sports games, most of which Hintz was able to attend. And just like before, she went to work.
"People tell me I'm strong," Hintz said, looking down shyly.
"I don't really want to believe it, but if they want to say it, I guess they can," she said, laughing. "I am a little braver than I used to be."
Her family helped. So did her friends. And her church. And her co-workers. And her health care providers.
"It's nice to live in a small community, to have people care for you and do nice things for you when you're down and out.
"... It's great to see people supporting you," she said. "That's why I love Relay for Life so much. It doesn't matter what kind of cancer you have. Everyone is there to support you. It's really a celebration."
