Oct. 30--Ronnie O'Donnell counts herself among the most fortunate of breast cancer survivors because the cancer she fought was only stage 2, and her chance of a relapse, her doctors have said, remains low.
But every now and then, she said, frustration overcomes her. In the privacy of the bedroom of her South Elgin home, the bubbly O'Donnell tears up at the sight of how unevenly her surgically-reconstructed breasts hang, the result of the double mastectomy she underwent to remove her breast with cancer and, as a preventive measure, her cancer-free breast.
"So now when you look at me, my boobs are slanted," said O'Donnell, 46. "People won't say anything, but they'll look at you. It's like they look down and they look up at your face and they look back down."
O'Donnell deals with her surgery the same way that she survived the side effects and complications of chemotherapy and the four particularly "bad days" she remembers from her 18-month cancer journey. On those days, when the comfort of her husband and her doctor's positive prognosis were not enough, all she could do was cry.
So she gathered fellow female survivors -- and together they turned to slightly inappropriate humor.
As Breast Cancer Awareness Month ends, women have reflected on the various ways they handled their cancer diagnoses and subsequent surgeries or other treatments. In the northwest suburbs of Chicago, O'Donnell helped women who also had double mastectomies at Advocate Sherman Hospital in Elgin laugh together about their shared struggles.
"We were talking about how having breast cancer was a sorority," O'Donnell said. "So I went online to look for T-shirts, and I went to custom tees. I'm looking at all the Greek letters, and when I saw the Theta, I was like, 'Oh my gosh. That looks like a mastectomy breast.' "
O'Donnell ordered 20 bright pink shirts with two Theta symbols positioned over each breast.
She smirks with some satisfaction at the thought that only doctors, nurses and survivors know what the symbol of a circle with a line in the middle stands for, and she scoffs at the notion that some might think she's too old for what she and other women see as their own sorority, a place to heal and share.
Theta Theta is for a small percentage of women who, she said, "went all the way" and removed both breasts even if, like O'Donnell, they chose to remove the second breast to reduce the chance of cancer returning.
"Our initiation just happens to be going under the knife," said Tina Conrad, 38, of Lakewood, one of the two first double-mastectomy patients who got a shirt.
The third founding member, Robin Raymond, 53, of Algonquin, met O'Donnell during her first chemotherapy treatment at Advocate's Cancer Care Center, when the nurse assigned to be a guide suggested they meet. O'Donnell jumped at the opportunity and sat next to Raymond as she got chemotherapy, started "chitchatting," she said, "and that was all it took."
O'Donnell found someone she could talk to about diarrhea without embarrassment. On days she could only tell her husband or friends "I'm fine," she said, she could give Raymond or Conrad her laundry list of ailments because they, too, knew there was rarely a day there wasn't a laundry list.
"Prior to getting a diagnosis you're like, 'Yeah I have a lot of friends,' " O'Donnell said. "It kind of turns out you have a lot of acquaintances, and you figure out who those good friends are. It's usually the person you would never have thought of before."
This month, Raymond approached a corner inside the cancer center on her last day of treatment to find bottles of sparkling grape juice, brownies, a poster and bright pink feather boas put out by O'Donnell.
"It's been a long year," Raymond said. "I've had my moments."
Those moments included the day she found out that her initial mammogram had only detected the less developed portion of her cancer -- "I sat in my car and cried after that." The day she got a buzz cut --"That was a traumatic day ... and it was a cold winter to have no hair." And the days after her surgery -- "It's hard to look at yourself and see a new, different you."
And she recalled the people who got her through.
O'Donnell, who was laid off from a senior accounting job in the middle of her treatments, could not stand the thought of leaving behind those who fought alongside her. She now volunteers at the cancer center, meeting with other patients before their surgeries to keep up their spirits.
"I don't just help them, but I help myself," O'Donnell said.
She hands women who are about to get a double mastectomy the pink shirt with the two Thetas, and she asks, "Do you want to see what you're going to look like?" If they say yes, she lifts up her shirt.
"They realize it's not nearly as bad as they thought it was going to be," O'Donnell said.
Conrad met the other Theta Theta women at a support group last fall when the stress of trying to work while going through chemotherapy took a toll and she was often crying in private. When she attended her first meeting, she cried publicly.
"It was this whole group of big sisters slash mothers slash grandmothers," said Conrad. "They were supportive and caring and fun. It was a group you could let your hair down and really talk openly with."
The women showed their support at a recent speech she made for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. They and others in the support group sat in the front row in matching shirts. Now that she has finished her treatment, Conrad wants to focus on sharing the messages of early detection, knowing your body and "knowing that your body is beautiful no matter what shape it comes in."
"At the end of the day," said Conrad, "all the rest of your friends don't understand what you're going through."
mmrodriguez@tribune.com
