Beat The Breast Cancer Triple Whammy

DETROIT - Oct. 18, 2015 - PRLog -- When the oncologist told Michigan native Ann Tracy Marr, ‘Your breast cancer is triple negative,’ her initial reaction was panic. What should she do to save her life? ‘Be optimistic,’ he said. Marr had trouble with optimism, but she could do determination. She stuck out her chin, cursed the tumors, and wrote a book, Dear Cancer, which addresses the issues facing women with these more aggressive tumors.

Triple negative breast cancer, frequently found in black and younger women, is an intimidating diagnosis few people even heard about a decade ago. It is considered more dangerous than other breast cancers because it grows aggressively and recurs more often. Standard hormonal therapies don’t affect it. Oncologists have to rely on surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation to destroy triple negative tumors.

Struggling through treatment, Marr educated herself about the disease, the medical process, and treatment side effects. ‘Why I need B vitamins,’ and ‘What is so bad about dehydration,’ joined ‘How do I deal with fear,’ in her combination research journal and diary.

No one takes a diagnosis of cancer easily. “Staying alive is an immediate and imperative goal. They don’t understand why but research has proven that optimism helps patients survive,” Marr said. “For me, knowledge equaled empowerment. Learning how grim triple negative cancer is made me more determined to beat it.”

“Understanding what was happening to my body, that constant fatigue and discomfort would get better, and that others went through treatment and survived bolstered my sense of optimism,” Marr claimed. “I drew hope from research in triple negative breast cancer. Maybe someday we’ll have an instant fix. Catching it early is critical and there are advances in that direction.” One step forward is cMethDNA, a test being developed by the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. It identifies some recurrences of breast cancer via blood tests. That would offer a better chance of survival than waiting until a tumor is big enough to be seen on a mammogram.

Education reinforced her determination and optimism, so much so that, cancer-free after three years, Marr decided to share her experiences with others. Her radiation oncologist read the diary and emailed her, saying, “I think the book will help patients immensely as they will have a general sense of what to expect. This is unlike any other book on cancer I have seen or read and it is refreshingly well written.”

Marr said, “After that, what else could I do but publish?”

She explained, “Beginning and ending with mammograms, the grayed words on the front cover of the book illustrate the medical process I followed and my main areas of research. What I learned by doing during treatment I put in the diary. I also did a lot of studying.” The answers she wrote to questions like ‘What will the doctor do?’ and ‘How might my body respond?’ are in plain English. Procedures such as biopsies, chest port insertions, PET scans, and radiation boosts are clearly described and explained.

In the book, Marr discusses side effects and symptoms like pain, blood clots, nausea, and weakness‒more than 125 in all‒along with medically approved options to deal with them.  “Not everything happened to me, but I studied all of them in case they did,” she said. Included are ways of finding help, whether for completing chores that illness precludes doing or for dealing with emotional concerns.

The information in her book, Dear Cancer, is drawn from Marr’s treatment team, medical articles, and physician-reviewed websites. Unscientific chat rooms provided a few illustrations of the challenges patients may face. Dear Cancer is available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.com and other Internet book stores. Read excerpts at the author’s website: http://www.atmarr.com.