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Transplant survivor turns to
poetry
When Barbara Whipple confronted the prospect of a peripheral blood
stem cell transplant (PBSCT) in the late summer of 1992, she wanted to run
away. She recalled, “At one point I found myself all alone in this little
hospital room, and all I could think was ‘I’ve never experienced this
kind of fear before.’ ”
Barbara Whipple
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But she overcame her fear, went through with the PBSCT, and was
back to work three months later. “I found the anxiety beforehand was
harder than the actual experience of having the transplant and
recovering,” she said.
Whipple learned she had breast cancer in April 1992. Despite a
family history of cancer, she was taken completely off guard. She received
routine gynecological examinations—the last one only six months
earlier—but never examined her breasts herself. Then one evening, while
reading an article on the subject, she pressed down and felt a lump in one
breast.
She made an appointment with her gynecologist, who confirmed the
presence of a large mass and scheduled her immediately for a biopsy. The
diagnosis was Stage III breast cancer. “I was in shock. I couldn’t
believe it—I couldn’t comprehend what they were telling me,”
Whipple said.
“That was on a Monday. I went to work on Tuesday,
tried to wind things up, and let them know I wouldn’t be in the next day.
On Wednesday I underwent a modified radical mastectomy.”
Following her surgery, Whipple was referred to an oncologist who
gave her a gloomy prognosis. She sought a second opinion and was given the name
of a breast cancer and stem cell transplant specialist. He saw her immediately
and spent several hours with her discussing options, including a PBSCT.
“He didn’t present me with gloom,” Whipple said. “He
presented hope.”
After a regimen of chemotherapy, Whipple went through a series of
peripheral stem cell harvests and was admitted to the hospital for her
transplant in September 1992.
“It was a tremendously positive experience,”
she remembered. “I felt safe and secure with the facility and the staff.
They were all right there for me.”
After six weeks in the hospital, she returned home to convalesce.
Her blood counts were low on occasion, she lost weight and felt weak and
fatigued. She also experienced some temporary changes in the way food smelled
and tasted, and some longer-term memory loss and difficulty sleeping. But her
recovery was comparatively uncomplicated and rapid: she returned to work on a
full-time basis at the beginning of December.
Whipple, a social worker at a high school near her home in Darien,
Ill., said her clinical training and experience helped her deal with her fears.
“At my lowest, I told myself that things were going to get better. I
focused on living. I probably rushed things going back to work, but I
couldn’t see sitting at home and dwelling on my problems. I thought the
best thing to do was normalize my life.”
Whipple got tremendous support during the experience from friends,
co-workers, church and local agencies. What sustained her more than anything,
however, was the desire to “be there” for her daughter, who was 3
years old at the time of the transplant.
Whipple did not think her daughter could understand much about
what was going on at the time, but recently has begun to deal with her
inquiries and curiosity in a direct, but simple, way. For example, Whipple
said, “I had started a hope chest for her when this was all going on and I
was feeling down. A couple of months ago she asked me what was in it, and why I
had put it together. So we talked about it some. I told her I had a disease
that I could have died from, but I got treatment for it and I’m okay now,
and I’m going to be okay.”
Whipple recently published a successful book of poems, entitled
“I’ve Got Cancer, But It Doesn’t Have Me,” which grew out
of journals she kept while she was in the hospital. A portion of the profits
goes to support cancer research.
“I feel like I’m operating on double
time—like I have to pack a lot in,” Whipple said. “But now that
I’ve gotten the chance, I want to do something with my life that’s
significant.” |
