Learning To Live With The Big C

On the afternoon of her 44th birthday, Mary Beth McDonald waltzed into the radiology department at Indian River Memorial Hospital (IRMH) for a mammogram. Her friends had nagged at her over lunch to get tested. She knew her baseline screening for breast cancer was several years overdue, but she was a busy and happy mother of two, and health was the last thing on her mind. Her friends’ comments must have made an impression, however, because on her way back to work that day, something made her turn into the hospital parking lot. She dug the crumpled, four-year-old doctor’s prescription out of her wallet and handed it to the technician.

It was the worst — and best — day of her life. A tumor was discovered, unmistakably cancerous. She would have to see a surgeon immediately to have it removed.

Read the entire article in the March 1999 issue