LeAnne Taylor: Fighting breast cancer

One in eight women will experience breast cancer sometime in her life. That statistic recently became a reality for one of our co-workers. <br/><br/>6 in the Morning anchor LeAnne Taylor has made public

Tuesday, May 4th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

One in eight women will experience breast cancer sometime in her life. That statistic recently became a reality for one of our co-workers.

6 in the Morning anchor LeAnne Taylor has made public her private battle with breast cancer. She shares her personal challenge in hopes of helping others.

Many people have heard or read about my battle with breast cancer. After successful surgery last December, my doctors recommended chemotherapy and radiation. It's standard treatment for women my age with my form of breast cancer.

Oncologist, Dr John Lohrey: â€œChemo, we tend to think that it actually gets into the bloodstream and chases down cancer cells if some cancer cells have broken off. It takes a lot of cancer cells to show up where you can see it but if there's ever one out there that there's a danger that the body can't take care of it, so chemotherapy chases it down and changes its DNA and breaks it up and hopefully kills it."

In my case, 4 cycles of adriamyacin and citoxin, once every 3 weeks, I'd come to the treatment area and be hooked up to an IV. It would take 2-3 hours for the drugs to reach the bloodstream.

Oncologist, Dr John Lohrey: â€œIt does have some side effects. It affects all rapidly growing cells particularly those in your blood like your white blood cells, they fight infection so sometimes you hear about patients getting really sick from chemo. Red blood cells carry oxygen, so some patients tend to be a little bit tired also platelets, they're not very famous but they clot your blood."

But the most visible side effect of chemo is hair loss. About 17 days following my first treatment, my hair began to fall out. So I took matters into my hands and had my husband shave my head. While it was somewhat traumatic, I at least knew the chemo was working.

The doctor monitors the side effects very carefully. I was lucky that the chemo didn't make me sick, thanks in part to the new anti-nausea drugs that are now being used.

This was my last chemo treatment and as you can imagine a huge milestone along this journey. Everyone, even nurse Cindy wants to make the experience memorable in their own way. While fighting cancer is serious business, a good attitude, the right medicine and a little bit of faith can make the difference.

Oncologist, Dr John Lohrey: â€œYou know we can cure some people with God's help and some people we prolong their life and for some people we alleviate their suffering, it is serious and it can be sad but it's very rewarding."

If you'd like more information regarding breast cancer or any form of cancer, contact the American Cancer Society at 743-6767 or their website at www.cancer.org.